


Kings Among Runaways

by allonsys_girl



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Alternate Universe - Prostitution, Alternate Universe - Teenagers, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, BAMF John, Blow Jobs, Bottom John, Bottom Sherlock Holmes, Drug Abuse, Drug Addict Sherlock, Drug Use, Gay Bar, Implied Sexual Content, Loss of Virginity, Love Confessions, Love at First Sight, M/M, POV Sherlock Holmes, Protective John, Protective Sherlock, Switching, Teenlock, Top John Watson, Top Sherlock, Violence, Virgin John, Work In Progress
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-26
Updated: 2015-05-19
Packaged: 2018-02-06 08:38:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 7
Words: 56,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1851622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allonsys_girl/pseuds/allonsys_girl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock is a street kid with a big drug problem, and John's run away from an abusive home life. When they meet each other in an alley one day, it's pretty much love at first sight. But the streets are rough, and Sherlock's never easy, and so there is much angst.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nothingislittle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nothingislittle/gifts).



> This story has been brewing in my head forever, and was inspired by The Decemberists' song On The Bus Mall, which is about teenage prostitutes/street kids. I immediately thought of John and Sherlock in this situation, what would have brought them to this place, and how they would have taken care of each other. 
> 
> I have never done IV drugs, and I hope that my descriptions of Sherlock using are not offensive to anyone or horribly inaccurate. it's certainly not my intention to be insulting in any way.

The sun hangs low, orange light illuminating shallowly the alleyways and mews where the kids like Sherlock take refuge, sleep, fuck, do their drugs. It’s an unusually   humid night for October, feels more like August, everything sticky and moist. The city smells are amplified, hanging in the air, clinging to Sherlock’s skin. The river stinks of fish and boat oil.

Sherlock’s kneeling next to a teetering stack of empty produce boxes, counting out the day’s take on the pavement, trying to calculate how much he can score before night falls. Hollow stomach, hollow soul, collapsed veins. His brain doesn’t even work right anymore. He can’t _think_ sometimes. That’s the worst part.

A shadow moves across the entrance to the alley, blocking his light.

He hasn’t been high since the night before. His temper is deadly short. He snaps his head up so hard it stings down his neck.

“Get the fuck out of my light.”

The sunlight behind the other boy blots out all his features. He’s a black silhouette. Compact, muscular, tight fitted clothes accentuating slightly bowed legs, the curve of biceps, strong neck. Paper bag dangling at the end of a small square hand. He turns his head, to look at Sherlock, presumably, and his eyelashes catch the light, blonde, absurdly long and curved gracefully upward. Elfin nose, square jaw.

_What the fuck is this kid doing here?_

“I’m sorry. I just. I was looking for a place to sit and eat something.” Voice deeper than Sherlock had expected, West London lilt, suburban enunciation. Not a public school kid. Not privileged, but close. Well cared for, at least in the ways other people would notice. Hasn’t been out here long. Maybe just days.

“Well, sit down then, and stop blocking out the light.” Sherlock’s own voice is jittery, needle thin after more than twelve hours without a fix. His throat’s dry. “You got anything to drink?”

“Um. Yeah.” The kid moves out of the light, and Sherlock gets a first look at his face. Giant blue indigo lilac grey black streaked eyes, red chapped lips, cleft in his chin, a bit of acne, but overall he’s a bloody prince out of a fairytale. Beautiful. _Fucking angelic._ He certainly doesn’t belong in this filthy alley, squatting gingerly next to Sherlock and offering a bottle of Coke to him with a shy smile. “Here. I have another. You can have it.”

This kid’s going to get eaten alive out here, unless there's more to him than Sherlock can see right now. Sherlock takes the bottle and sucks half of it down in one pull. Sugar. Caffeine. At least it’s something.

"I'm John."

"I didn't ask."

“Oh.” John’s eyes shift away. Embarrassed. He cracks open the second Coke and takes a sip. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine.” He looks like a rugby player. Definitely. Callouses on his elbows from falling, skidding across wet grass. Hips extremely muscular from squatting in the scrum. “Are you planning to stay there?”

John looks wary. Heat rises in his cheeks. Perfect cheeks. Just hollow enough, round on the bone, handsome. He’s handsome. His eyelashes flutter as he looks down, upper row catching on the lower as his eyes shut. “I don’t have to. Can I just...finish my sandwich?”

He lays a brown wrapped square on the pavement, pickle juice pungent, leaking through the corner of the paper. Sherlock’s mouth waters. God, no food in days. It’s been slow, hot, no one looking for a quick fuck in a parked car when it’s 35 degrees and everyone’s boiling. All his money’s been for the high, nothing extra for food.

“Where’d you get that? None of the shops around here will let me in.”

“Oh. Uh. Pret a Manger. I could...I still have some money. Do you want one? I’ll go --” John makes to get up, so eager. Too eager, too friendly. There has to be an angle.

No no no. Played that game before. No favours. “No fucking way. I’m not owing you shit.”

John recoils a little, hurt in the depths of those fathomless eyes. “I didn’t...expect...I just thought...Nevermind.”

He opens the sandwich, curls over his folded legs and tucks in. Sherlock recognises the signs of being so hungry it’s hard to not put it away with one bite, shove the whole thing in and just choke and gag because the hunger can’t wait. John takes a small bite and chews forever, for way too long, trying to hide it. He’s still trying to be civilised. That never lasts long.

“You don’t have to eat politely just for me. I don’t give a shit.”

John stares at him, a lump of half chewed sandwich in his cheek. He looks disturbingly and rather adorably like a chipmunk. He considers Sherlock for a moment, then reaches down and takes the other half of the sandwich, dripping grease and cheese, holds it out to Sherlock. “Here.”

“No.”

“Fucking take the sandwich.” John flinches at himself, reconsiders. “Please. Honestly, take it.”

“You gonna shut up if I do?”

“Yeah.”

“Fine then.” Sherlock doesn’t say thank you. God, it smells amazing. Some kind of thing with mozzarella cheese and pesto, oily and fragrant. Sherlock licks delicately at the edge of it, wanting to savour it.

They chew in silence until they’re finished, long shadows falling in triangles across the alley.

“You want the pickle? I hate pickles.” John waves the pickle at Sherlock and it flops listlessly against his hand. It looks like a limp dick.

Against all his rules, all his instincts, Sherlock laughs. It sounds harsh and foreign to his own ears. It’s probably been months since he laughed. Since Molly disappeared. Don’t think about Molly.

John laughs too, and _oh_. His face when he laughs. It’s a light in dark places inside Sherlock, it’s a warm mug in cold hands on a snowy day, it’s the sunrise over the river when the city is still and silent and perfect; it’s _glowing_. His eyes crinkle and those ridiculous lashes actually touch the edges of his eyebrows, and Sherlock’s stomach flips. A bit not good.

He takes the pickle, and their fingertips brush. “Thanks.”

John blushes, pinches his lips to the side, shrugs. “I wasn’t gonna eat it anyway.”

Sherlock eats the pickle in two bites, salt and celery seed tart on his tongue. John's watching him out if the corner is his eye, elbows on his thighs. Sherlock wipes pickle juice on his jeans, goes back to counting his money. Fuck. Not enough to get him through the night. One more trick, just one more. There’s always that greasy little fuck who always hung round the edges of Hackney Downs, watching the boys playing rugby. Maybe he's watched John before. He’s always up for it. Easy mark.

Sherlock stands, stretches, sweeps coins and bills off the pavement and into his pocket. John’s eyes on him. Sherlock gives him an eyeful, a sliver of pale hard tummy, watches what he does. Nothing. His eyes don't even flicker down, just watches Sherlock's face. Disappointing.

Blue indigo ocean robin’s egg eyes stare up at him, earnest and lonely. “You leaving?”

Sherlock sniffs, smirking. “What, are we friends now?”

John swallows, but doesn’t avert his gaze. "No. I don’t even know your name.”

Sherlock strides away. Something hurts, something...about leaving this innocent little creature in the alley by himself. _I don’t have friends._ There’s a spark of connection, a pull. No. No. It’s all starvation and want here, there’s no room for anything gentle, anything good. There’s no saving anyone. _Walk away Sherlock._

“Sherlock. The name’s Sherlock.” He doesn’t turn around. Doesn’t wait for a response.

***

The stars are out by the time Sherlock makes his way to Hackney Downs.

Boys in sweaty rugby gear are leaving the park in packs, balls tucked under their arms, laughing and pushing each other. Mother with small children are wrestling them into prams, looking weary and worn down. No one looks at Sherlock, skinny, bedraggled, tight dirty tee shirt and raccoon eyes. He’s invisible. Everyone’s headed home, warm lights, fireplaces crackling in sitting rooms lined with bookshelves. Mycroft, light the fire, will you? Sherlock’s chilly.  Nope. Won’t think of home, of them. Delete it.

There’s the little shit, on the bench beyond the rugby pitch. Sherlock suppresses a shudder. He’s easy, but so foul. Greasy, grotesquely thin, he smells sour and dirty. He’s the absolute stereotype of every pedo in a bad film. But he always has money.   _Maybe I’m saving someone tonight._ The only way he gets through it sometimes, thinking someone else won't have to endure it.

There are men much less foul, but they take searching for. And Sherlock’s starting to shake, feel weak. He _needs._

“Looking for company?” Sherlock slumps on the bench next to him. There’s a hand almost immediately on his thigh.

“Always.” The man’s voice is sickly smooth, quiet. He runs his hand up Sherlock’s leg, thumbs over his balls. Right here. On a park bench with a million kids about.

“Let’s get somewhere private. You have cash?” Sherlock lets the guy continue fondling him, waits.

“Yeah.” The man’s voice is already breathy.

“Show me.” Sherlock’s never been taken by him before, but it happens. Have to make sure.

He pulls a wallet out of his back pocket, taking his hand off of Sherlock for the moment, and Sherlock has a flood of relief. This feels more difficult tonight than usual. _Interesting. What's the variable? John? No. Can't be._

_Possibly._

He wants the high so badly, though. He’ll be seeing double soon, vomiting. Must score tonight. Necessary.

“See?” The man opens the wallet to a wad of fivers and Sherlock’s both placated and revolted, because now he must. Must follow through.

“Alright. Your car?”

“Other side of the tennis courts.”

“Let’s go.”

***

“No. No. That’s not...I didn’t agree to that.” Sherlock shoves at the man, fists against his sweaty shirt. He’s so skinny, why is he so strong? Because Sherlock hasn’t had heroin in almost twenty four hours and he’s withdrawing and weak as a fucking kitten, and trapped on his back against the door of a car. That’s why. Sherlock, you sodding fucking fool.

“You don’t get to say what you agree to. I pay you and you do what I want, little boy.” The man’s grabbing at Sherlock’s jeans, trying to pull them off.

“I'm not a little boy, I'm nineteen, you fucker. No, you said blow job. That’s what we agreed on. No! _NO!_ ” Hard to breathe. Hard to see. It’s so hot. There’s sweat in his eyes, burning. He's kicking blindly, not making contact with anything. Please, please stop. Goddammit. He’s usually so pliant, this one, happy for whatever he gets. Not tonight. _Stupid, STUPID, Sherlock._

Sherlock scrabbles for the door handle, can’t find it. Gets a handful of velour and fake wood paneling, the wood coming away in his fingers. He can’t breathe. Got to find a way out. _Crack_. Suddenly his face is burning, stinging. The man’s face looms above him, red and angry, his hand held high.

The realisation dawns that this man just slapped him.

Sherlock tries to conjure up the necessary anger to fight back, but panic is weighing him down. His limbs feel like custard, thick and impossible to move properly. He lets himself sag into the seat. He’s been here before. Just get it over with, let it happen, and then he can go and forget about. Score. _Put a needle in his arm and fly_.

He closes his eyes, ready to acquiesce, begins to try to blank out his mind...and then all at once he’s tumbling backwards out of the car, smacking his head hard on the asphalt, legs flipping backwards in a somersault. Gravel grinds into his shoulder as he struggles to understand what just happened.

Someone opens the car door. He opens his eyes, looks up to see a strong muscled back in a sweaty red tee shirt and blonde hair sticking up all over, a halo in the glow of the street light. _Fucking angelic._

“You want to fucking try that with me, arsehole?” John’s fists are balled up, his legs spread wide to balance himself. Ready for a fight. “Because I have about three stone on your sick pedo arse, and I will break your fucking face.”

His voice doesn’t shake at all.

The little shit holds his hands up in deference. He’s on his knees in the back seat, half out of his pants. He’s repulsive. Sherlock fights gagging, covers his mouth with a dirt smeared hand. “I don’t want any trouble from you.”

“Then get in your fucking car and drive away, and don’t come back here. Ever. Or I will fucking hunt you down.” John doesn’t lower his fists, doesn’t back away. “You deaf? Drive. Away."

“Okay, okay --” He scrambles into the front seat without bothering to pull his trousers up, fumbles to put the keys in the ignition.

John slams the back door closed and kicks the boot hard enough that the car rocks forward. He rounds the driver’s side, leans down menacingly into the window. His face is terrifying, hard and ferocious. All Sherlock can do is gape at the change from the boy in the alley. “I’m counting down to one before I pull you out of that car and beat you unconscious. Three...two…”

The car peels away with a screech, careening onto the cross street into a bevy of horns and shouting. John’s shoulders are heaving, his hands clenching into fists over and over, watching the intersection.

“How did you -- why --” Can’t form a thought, still half crouched on the ground, knee digging into a broken chunk of asphalt. John's looking down with steely glare still in his eyes.

“Just had a bad feeling. Followed you here. Come on, then.” John’s face softens, his lips curl at the corner, offers his hand to pull Sherlock up to standing.

“You followed me here?”

John shrugs, “Yeah. Seemed like what I should do. I dunno.” Still holding out his hand.

Sherlock stares at the hand. Soft peach coloured palm, but strong and square like the rest of him, nails dirty. This is a moment he can't get back. Take that hand and everything changes. _It already has, Sherlock. He followed you. He protected you. He just saved you from being raped._

 John's grip is firm, secure, as he pulls Sherlock up. He’s short, tiny. He seemed so huge a few moments ago, his presence filling up the space his body doesn’t occupy. They haven't stood next to each other before now, and Sherlock looms over him, a full head taller. "Thank you."

"I get the feeling you don't say that much." John shoves his hands in his pockets, looking bashful again, like he did when they met in the alley.

"I don't, no." Sherlock brushes the dirt and gravel off his hands, brushes them on the back of his jeans.

John's eyes are black in the honey yellow street light. He considers Sherlock, chewing on the inside of his lip. "You okay?"

 _Swallow. Breathe._ Heart still thumping madly. "I am. I need to, ah..."

John juts an elbow at Sherlock’s arm, red streaked and thin. "Need that?"

"None of your business." Sherlock shakes a cigarette out of the pack half crushed in his pocket and lights it with shaking fingers.

"I didn't say it was.” John’s eyes are on him again, quietly questioning.

“What?” Sherlock snaps. He can’t help it. Means to sound so much gentler, but so often everything comes out all wrong.

“You need money?" John rocks back on his heels, hands still in his pockets.

Wary again. What the hell does this kid want with him?

"No." But he does, oh god. He needs it so badly. He sucks hard on the cigarette, blows it out of his nostrils and refuses to look away.

"Mmm. Here. Take a tenner, it's all I can spare. I don't want you to have to do that again tonight." John jerks his head in the direction the pedo drove off, holds out a ten pound note, shakes it when Sherlock doesn't reach for it. "Fucking take it. I'll just throw it on the ground and leave it there if you don't."

"Why do you want to help me?"

John laughs again, straight white teeth and pink tongue tucked between them. "I don't know. I have no fucking idea."

They stand there in silence, just looking at each other. Any minute John’s going to leave. Sherlock doesn't want him to leave. Doesn't want him to disappear into the night, a brief moment of connection gone forever. He wants to talk to him until the sun rises, sit on a bench by the river and smoke, laugh at the tourists who think London is all Big Ben and double deckers beauty and history and grace, who don't understand it's never been that, but always darker and more tortuous and more fantastic. He wants to walk on the banks with him, listening to the crunch of river rocks under their trainers and tell John about the science of sand, how the water wears down the rocks into nothingness. He wants them to drink scalding hot coffee out of styrofoam cups in the pink morning in some greasy diner, laughing at each other across the table. He wants to know the exact weight of John’s head resting on his stomach. He wants to trace those eyelashes with a fingertip and fall asleep with John's face inches from his own. He wants to see that laugh, those crinkled shining eyes, every day for the rest of his existence. He wants to tuck John into his body, inside his bones, and keep him. Never spend another day without those searching intense eyes roaming his face.

_It wasn't even like this with Molly. And she's the only other friend...mustn't think of her._

"You have a place to sleep tonight, John?" It’s out of his mouth before he even realises what he’s saying, before he can think himself out of it.

"No. Bet you don't either." John sucks his cheeks between his teeth and somehow his eyes get even bigger, looks up at Sherlock from under those movie star eyelashes. He’s a literal fucking _puppy_ , this kid. A puppy with fangs and a fierce bite.

"I do actually. It's...not fancy, I mean, it's still not...but...it's safe. I sleep there every night. You could. If you wanted." Sherlock feels inexplicably nervous. He's going to say no. He's going to leave.

John looks down, digs the toe of his trainer into the ground. Here it comes. Why did he ever say anything, why did he bother --

"Yeah, alright." He glances up at Sherlock, licks his lower lip and bites into it.

"Really?"

"Yeah, really. Anyone else there?"

 _Not any more._ "No. Just us."

"Good." John dares another grin, and Sherlock feels himself grinning back. Something soft unfurls inside him, something dangerously vulnerable. This is a bit not good, this kind of trust in another person, but it feels inevitable. It feels right.

“I’ll take you back there, and then I have to --” Sherlock’s not nauseous yet, but it’s coming.

John nods, brow furrows. He doesn't make Sherlock say it aloud, which is unusually kind. “How about I go with you?”

“You would -- why would you want to do that?”

“Dunno. I don’t want to be alone, I guess." John shrugs.

He’ll be horrified. He’ll leave then, after he sees Sherlock buying heroin, mixing it with stale water fished out of a fountain days before and kept in bottles next to his sleeping bag, tapping the syringe, searching for a vein that’s not collapsed. After he sees him high, staggering, falling asleep standing up. He’ll leave. He’s too good, too clean and kind and solid.

“You don’t want to see that, John. You really don’t.”

“Why don’t you let me decide for myself what I do and don’t want to see?”

Their eyes lock, Sherlock can’t look away. Those eyes are mesmerising, compelling. John’s holding him in them, refusing to back down or look away. He’s smiling, though - my god, he smiles all the time - and another piece of armor is torn away, disintegrates in the face of this perplexing boy, who shares his food and stares down rapists and laughs like the world is still beautiful.

“Alright. I have to -- do that -- first. Then we go home.”

John nods firmly, falls into step with Sherlock as they leave the park and start heading south. They walk in silence for a kilometer or so. The steady cadence of John’s footfalls beside him are frighteningly comforting. He can’t do this again, can’t be attached again. He’s always alone. Alone is safe. Except when it isn’t, like tonight. John saved him.

“Thank you. Again. For before.”

“You’re welcome again. I’m glad I was there.”

Sherlock laughs ruefully. “Me too.”

“So where are we going?”

“Housing estate where my -- ah, contact, is. It’s not far now.”

They lapse back into silence. Walking past full skips, overflowing with trash, little kids playing cricket in the street with ragged balls and pipes for bats, far too late for them to be awake. Parents sitting in stairwells smoking and drinking out of plastic cups. It's steaming hot, the air smells like rubbish and stale piss. John’s looking around warily, his lips pinched in a tight line.

“It’s alright. No one’s going to give us any trouble.” Sherlock’s been trying the entire walk not to look at him, not to watch his eyelashes in the moonlight, his crooked smile that seems like it’s mostly to himself, the way he walks bow-legged and athletic, swaggers almost, strong thigh muscles underneath his dirty jeans. Now he gives in, allows his gaze to travel over John’s entire body. He's exquisite, perfect, Sherlock can't swallow. He can't do this.

Then something clicks in his muddled mind. Something's off. Something’s missing. “Where’s your stuff?”

“What?”

“Where’s all your stuff? We all have bags and bits of shit we pick up here and there. Mine’s back at my place, but you -- you don’t have a place, just got out here. Where’s your bag?”

“I don’t have one. I just kinda...left. I didn’t have time...” John looks down at his feet, shoves his hands in his pockets and looks away. “Can we not --”

“I’m sorry.” And he is, he actually is. He’s rarely actually sorry, for anything. But he’s made John uncomfortable, and the apology can’t leave his mouth fast enough.

“No, it’s fine. Just. I don’t…”

“This is it. You coming up?” Sherlock would object, but something tells him John will do what he wants to, regardless of Sherlock’s objection.

“Yeah, of course I am.” John squares his shoulders, sucks his tongue between his teeth. His mouth never stops moving. It’s distracting.

Sherlock’s never had anyone go with him when he scores. Not even Molly. It’s inexplicably embarrassing as they trudge side by side up the filthy concrete steps, down the fenced in exterior hallway of the third floor where Sherlock’s dealer lives. He raps gently on the door, nervous, as always, and more so because he can feel John’s billowing breaths at his neck as he stands behind Sherlock, feet tapping nervously, understands John is tolerating this, but disapproving. Why he should give one fuck about John’s approval is beyond him, but he does. God, he does so much he has a knot in his stomach. And not just from withdrawl.

The door swings open a crack, bleary brown annoyed eyes staring out at him, at them. They’re a _them_ now, Sherlock realises.

“You. Didn’t expect you today, you’re round rather late, aren’t you?” Jim rubs his hair, yawns. He's always bored, with everything.

“I didn’t have enough, earlier -- it was a slow day.”

Incredulous eyebrows lift at him, smirking. “With _those_ lips? You could make your fortune sucking off half of London if it didn’t all go in your arm. Alright. Come in. Who the fuck is this?” The door swings open all the way, and with a sweep of his arm, he ushers them in.

“A friend.” John bites out, before Sherlock can speak.

“He doesn’t have friends.” Jim smirks, and a hot ball of humiliation burns in Sherlock's throat.

“He does now.” John’s eyes are metallic grey, flat and simmering. His right hand curls into a fist, uncurls.

“Interesting. Well. Make yourselves at home, lovelies, and I’ll be back in a jiffy.”

John looks around the flat warily, peering round doorways. It’s cleaner than one would expect, tidy and uncluttered. White leather sofa, glass topped coffee table with a stack of money sitting on it. John points at the money, eyebrows raised.

“He just leaves that there?”

“Um. Jim would slit my fucking throat if I touched that, a fact which both he and I know well. He knows I won’t mess with it.”

“Jim? You two on a first name basis?”

“We used to --” Sherlock fades out at the look on John’s face. "It was a long time ago."

“Oh.” John swallows, Adam's apple bobbing in his muscular neck. "You lived here, then?"

Sherlock shakes his head quickly. "No. Before. When I was -- not this."

John's looking at him with sympathy, and it's too much. He can't stand to see that look in John's eyes, it's too akin to pity. He looks away, walks to the window with his back to John. John clears his throat.

“So, when we leave here? What then?”

Sherlock looks down onto the square in the middle of the housing estate. The children are beginning to drift inside, pipes and balls left carelessly on the concrete. The parents are saying their goodnights, smoking their last cigarettes. Everyone here so lost and listless, by the time they’re five they’ve given up on having anything better. When Sherlock was five, his mother told him he could be Prime Minister if he wanted. That he was brilliant, beautiful. Her perfect little cherub. She brushed his black curls with a horsehair brush and kissed him on the forehead before he went to school. Mycroft read to him, books about physics and chemistry, curled on the floor with Redbeard at their feet, cosy by the grand marble fireplace that always seemed too large for the rest of the house. His father ruffled his hair, told Sherlock he was smarter at five than his old dad could ever hope to be.

_He never imagined. Never thought for one second that this would be his life._

Deep breath. “Then we go back home, and I get high and you go to sleep.”

He can actually hear John grinding his teeth. “Alright. What about tomorrow?”

“Don’t ask me about tomorrow.”

John falls silent, but Sherlock can feel his eyes boring into his back.

Jim comes loping out of the bedroom, glass vial twirling between two fingers. “Okay, Sherly, fifty.”

Sherlock balks. It’s never been that much. That’s everything he’s got. But no choice. He’s got to have it.

“Alright.” He reaches in his pocket, pulling out crumpled notes and a few random coins, counts it out and shoves it in Jim’s outstretched hand.

Jim sets the vial carefully in the palm of Sherlock’s other hand and closes his fingers for him. “Careful with that now. Wouldn’t do to lose it.”

They watch each other a long moment. Sherlock used to get lost in those chocolate brown eyes, laying on expensive hotel sheets in rooms Sherlock’s mother had paid for. _I think it’s lovely you’re spending the weekend in the Cotswolds, Sherlock. Beautiful walking this time of year._ The boy from the council housing, the boy he wasn’t supposed to be seeing. The sneaking made it sexier, dangerous. Jim’s naked outline, standing at the window smoking, staring down at the lush green gardens, angry. He was always angry. Or bored. Looking into those cold eyes now, Sherlock couldn’t understand now how he’d ever thought...

“Can we go now?” John pipes up, with a long loud exhalation.

“Yes. We’re done here.” Sherlock turns to see John watching him with an expression both furious and tender, those amazing eyes filled with softness, but his jaw muscles clenched and jumping with anger. It hurts. It’s a punch to the gut, seeing someone look at him again like they care. How has this happened in just a few hours?

Jim saunters to the door, holding it open, looks John up and down. “Didn’t catch your name.”

“Didn’t give it.” John’s face is setting into that furious square jaw that he had with the pedo. But Jim isn’t some skeevy old man. Jim is dangerous. Sherlock pulls on John’s arm, the contact between their skin making his stomach swoop uncomfortably.

Jim cocks his head to the side, looking at John like he’s something to be dissected, flayed on a table with pins in his wrists. It’s a look that sends shivers down Sherlock’s spine because he knows what it means. It means Jim won’t forget John now. He can’t be invisible to him again.

“Got yourself a bodyguard here, Sherlock. Careful, pretty boy. Sherlock  will get you into lots of trouble.” The sing song in his voice is menacing. John doesn’t flinch.

“You trying to be intimidating?”

“You trying to be brave?”

John moves forward, his small frame seeming to fill the doorway. Jim looks down at him, smirking, crosses his arms over his chest. Johns fists are balling up, his nostrils flaring. That’s enough. This is going to end badly, and Sherlock has his fix. _Time to go._

“Come on, John.” Sherlock strides quickly out the door, wincing as he realises he just said John’s name aloud. Shit. Brain just not functioning as it should be.

John falls into pace beside him as they jog down the stairs. Jim’s watching them. He can feel his glare on the back of his neck like sunburn. He’s never going to let Sherlock have the last word. Never.

“Johnny boy, eh? Well, have fun tonight Johnny boy! Sherlock really likes to be fucked _hard_ when he’s high, just FYI!”

Sherlock can feel John tensing. “Don’t. Just don’t. Please. It’s not worth it.”

John doesn’t relax, but he doesn’t say anything either, and that’s enough. Sherlock glances at him; he’s chewing his lip, shoulders tight. There’s so much more to him than Sherlock could have imagined. He’s not fucking angelic. He a fucking mystery. He’s a paradox.

“God, where did you _come_ from?” It should sound rude, but it doesn’t. It sounds awestruck, which is exactly how Sherlock feels.

John laughs, and his shoulders drop a little as they round the corner of the building and set off across a lot where grass is trying to grow amidst the rubbish. “Hounslow. No where special at all.”

They walk close enough for their hands to brush, the night growing cool around them. It’s miles of companionable silence, their knuckles sweeping past each other occasionally, shoulders bumping, before they get to what Sherlock calls home. Tower Bridge looms in the night sky as Sherlock moves a few pieces of hastily stacked lumber and a few canvas cloths spattered with paint and reveals a wide stairway down into pitch blackness.

“What’s this then?” John looks at him, hesitating, eyelashes fluttering as he blinks.

“Home.” Sherlock grins, and John grins back. A stiff wind blows off the river and they both shiver. “Come on, I have blankets down there.”

Sherlock pulls a pen-sized torch out of his pocket and hands it to John, flicks another one on for himself. “It’s St Mark’s tube station. Closed in the 1960’s when the Tower Bridge station opened. It’s closed off from any lines, and pretty clean and safe, considering the alternatives.”

“And no one ever bothers you, or tries to come down?”

“Not really.” Sherlock pulls the canvases back in place and leads John down the cracked tile steps. The tube station is damp, being right next to the river, and a bit mouldy, but it’s familiar. Welcome. It’s been a hell of a long day.

Sherlock sinks down on his sleeping bag and immediately starts pulling out his water, needles, spoon. John’s standing in the darkness with his torch pointed at Sherlock, just watching.

“I do this. if you’re going to stay here with me, you have to know...I’m...this is what I do. You can watch it if you want, but I’m going to do this whether you’re standing there looking at me or not.” Terrifying to say. Is this the moment? The breaking point? John throwing his torch down in disgust and disappearing into the night?

“I don’t want to watch, but I’m going to stay with you.” John folds onto his knees on the other end of the sleeping bag. “Why? Why this?”

“Long story.” Sherlock pulls his belt with his teeth, tightens it around his arm. “Why are you out here?”

The wind is whipping above them, the canvases cracking and filling the station with echoes. For a moment he thinks John won’t answer, as he stares off into the blackness of the tunnel. But then he clears his throat and rubs his hand over his face, says in a hoarse weary voice. “I was tired of having the shit beat out of me every day.”

Sherlock stares at him. Strong, brave John. John who saved him from a rapist, who wasn’t afraid of Jim, who is sitting there unabashedly watching Sherlock about to shoot heroin into his arm. John, who never flinches. John who shared his sandwich, his money, who laughs crinkley eyed and wondrous. Who could ever want to hurt John?

“Who?” Sherlock whispers, barely breathing.

“My dad, mostly. My mom, too, sometimes. It was better when my sister lived at home, but...she’s at uni now, and…” John shakes his head and stops. His eyes close, long blonde lashes resting on his cheeks, his small hands folded in his lap. He looks like he’s praying.

Sherlock can’t look away, filled syringe ready in his hand, his arm throbbing from the restricted circulation. He heart hurts. He can’t remember the last time he felt this, felt this connection to another person, so deep and so visceral. He wants to take all John’s pain away, he wants to murder anyone who ever hurt him.

In a hush, he murmurs, “Don’t ever go back there.”

“I won’t.” John doesn’t open his eyes. He breathes out long and shuddering. “I’ll watch over you. Go ahead and do what you need to do, and I’ll be right here when you get up. Or come out of it, or whatever.”

Sherlock doesn’t ask why this time. This has gone beyond questioning it. For the first time in years, he doesn’t even want the drugs. He wants to sit up with John all night long and talk and watch the river and smoke. His body is screaming for them, though, and he can no longer deny himself. He puts needle to skin, lets his eyes fall shut, feels the pop, the coolness and then the burn as he depresses the plunger.

When he rips his belt off, and opens his eyes, John’s watching him. His head starts to float a little. John leans forward and brushes his fringe away from his forehead so tenderly, his fingertips hot against Sherlock’s skin.

***

Hours later, they’re sitting by on the river walk, swinging their legs against the stone wall as the sun comes up orange and huge in the autumn morning. Sherlock passes John the cigarette they’re sharing and takes a sip of the stale water from one of his stash of bottles.

John takes a drag and blows it out slowly, hands it back to Sherlock. “So what are we going to do today?”  

Sherlock doesn’t want to spoil it, this perfect moment, with the sunlight breaking over their laps and their saliva being exchanged on the cigarette filter. _Well, John, today I’m going to sell myself to a bunch of nasty men who pick up young boys so they can get a hand job in their car at lunchtime while their wife is waiting at home with a baby on each hip, for money to buy drugs and then I’m going to buy the drugs and then I’m going to do the drugs, and it’s the same fucking thing every day. This isn’t some goddamned adventure movie._

“I don’t know. Let’s just finish our cigarette and then we’ll decide.” Sherlock smiles, hands John back the cigarette.

John’s other hand is resting on the stone between them. Sherlock sweeps his pinky over John’s, so light, it could have been an accident if he has to excuse it. He doesn’t though, because John automatically reacts, curling his pinky around Sherlock’s and pinning it. He doesn’t say anything, doesn’t look at Sherlock. Just the heat of their pinkies twined together on the cold stone, John blowing smoke out over the river as the tide rolls in.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John and Sherlock get closer, and get a bit of a reprieve from the daily difficulties of living on the streets. Basically a chapter of them falling for each other, really hard.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note there is drug use in this chapter, just briefly, but if it's a trigger for you, fair warning.
> 
> Also, I made John a year younger than Sherlock. It just seemed right for this incarnation of them.

The sun's high, hazy behind what has become a typically cloudy grey London sky before John and Sherlock make any attempt to rouse themselves from the river walk. Tourists gathering, milling around and calling Tower Bridge _London Bridge_ in strident midwestern accents, trying to figure out where the nearest Starbucks is and assiduously avoiding looking at the two raggedly dirty teenage boys sitting suggestively close to each other and smoking continuously.

"Are you hungry?" John turns those eyes on Sherlock, bright and Mediterranean blue in the morning light. They're devastating. _This is irrevocable, Sherlock. You'll never be able to extricate yourself from him._

"Yeah, but --" Sherlock shrugs, pulls on his cigarette. "No money. I can, _you know_...but I have to get to Hackney or someplace not here. There's too many cops in the touristy areas."

John bites his lip, looks down where their pinkies are still touching, shoulders pressed together. "Do you _have_ to?" His voice is quiet, hesitant. He's not trying to claim Sherlock, not trying to command him. He’s pleading.

All the same, it stings. This boy who's got no idea what it's really like out here, whose clothes are still vaguely clean, who's never had to suck off some gross old skeever for ten quid and a cup of tea; questioning him, judging. It goes down like cheap whiskey, scalding and bitter. Burns all the way down.

"Yeah, I _have_ to." The first harsh words Sherlock's said to him since the rapist drove off. "You want to eat? You want cigarettes and coffee in the morning? Well. Then you'll have to too, soon enough. Stealing doesn't work, you get caught too often. I know. I tried it."

John seethes quietly, Sherlock watching the twitch of his eyelid, how a vein appears in his temple. His cheeks are ruddy, blotchy like he’s been running. He’s angry and trying not to be. He’s the most beautiful person Sherlock’s ever seen. There’s no being right anymore without John here, touching him, next to him. He’s lost to this. The world will never be right again without John & Sherlock, together.

There’s been a silent acquiescence to this _them_ ness. It’s visceral, in their blood their neurons their epidermis. Their souls, if Sherlock believed in that sort of thing. Joined. Sherlock knew it the moment he looked up at the back of that sweaty red tee shirt, and he realises John has probably knew in the alley. When their fingertips touched over that limp dick pickle. That quickly, they both felt it. John's fighting with himself now, arms crossed over his chest, fingers digging into his elbows. He looks across the river, that square jawline working, chewing at the inside of his cheeks.

"What, John?" Sherlock hears how exasperated he sounds. Can't help it. Last night was like a fairy tale. John the knight in shining armour. This morning, it's reality, and even though they're now in this together, Sherlock still needs drugs and they both need food. John can’t save him from starvation through sheer willpower.

"Well. I might have access to some money. If my dad hasn't...I have a bank account. That's mine. Money from working and birthdays and stuff. It's where my money came from yesterday. I...when I left, I took out a couple hundred quid, but I was afraid to take out more, to have all that cash on me. Except now I'm not alone, and..."

"I have a place. A safe place. We could keep money there, no one would find it." The surge of _what if_ is almost painful. It doesn’t even occur to him to not accept. To say, _no, John, this is your money_. Because god, what if? How long? How long would he not have to...? _Please, oh please._

"If my dad hasn't shut off my card, I could..." John turns to Sherlock, baleful eyes stormy with emotion. "Sherlock I don't want you to have to do _that_ anymore. Not once, ever again. I know I have…I know it’s not my place or whatever, but. I'll buy you drugs, I'll steal, I'll do anything. I'll fucking panhandle, I'll pickpocket, I don't care -- I'll do whatever it takes. But. Please."

Slowly John crawls his fingers over Sherlock's hand resting on his thigh, threading all four of his stubby fingers in between Sherlock's long ones. _No, oh god. It's too much. It's terrifying._ Sherlock's throat constricts, aches, with this blooming inside him. Hope. For the first time in fucking forever. And it's tortuous, to hope, to think there could be something different.

"John. It's not that simple." There's a warning in his tone, and John hears it, curls his fingers into Sherlock's palm so there's no doubt the meaning behind this. _You're mine. I'm yours._ He doesn't back down. From anything.

"Sherlock. It could be. For a little while, anyway. We could -- have time, to sort things out. To think. You're nineteen, I'm eighteen, it doesn't have to -- we could -- we could do something else. Together." John's tone is warm, husky. He rubs his thumb over the inside of Sherlock's wrist.

" _Why?_ " Sherlock breathes out. He can't comprehend this. How everything has changed, how it all feels - romantic, suddenly. Like they're in a film where the ending is predetermined, the boy gets the boy, things aren't complicated and messy and confusing. He knows it’s false, it can’t last like this. Maybe even just...just for a few days. To pretend. For them both.

"I don't know. I just. When I saw you, I just..." John’s too close. John’s breath is on his face, tobacco-y and sour from sleep. Sherlock can see every spot on his face, every hair. He’s got stubble, silvery blonde in the grey light. “I don’t know. You looked so alone. I just didn’t want you to be alone.”

Sherlock bites into his lip, looks down to John’s small red mouth, thinks about the last time he kissed someone when he wanted to. When it wasn't a means to an end, when it wasn't a stranger in a car groping him. When he wasn't trying to block it out. The hungry heat of someone’s tongue snaking into his mouth, their body sweet and heavy on top of him, the gentleness of warm hands cradling his face.

“John.”

“Yeah?”

“How much money do you have?” Sherlock has to break this spell. This is far too much, far too quickly. He darts his head back, grins, and John’s face breaks open like a light being flipped on in a dark room. _Where did you come from?_

“I have no idea. Couple thousand, I think. Wanna go find out?” John jumps up to standing and stretches his hand down to Sherlock, his face alight with mischief. “Come on.”

John is a small blonde thunderstorm, whipping into Sherlock’s life with a hard cleansing rain, thunder in his temper and lightning flashing in those hypnotic eyes. The world has shifted in less than twenty four hours, in ways Sherlock can't understand. “I don’t know what to _do_ with you.”

John cocks his head to the side, as if he’s considering it. He shrugs, “I don’t know what to do with me, either. So we're even."

Sherlock allows himself to be helped up, and John’s hand resettles in his, fitting their palms together. He looks up at Sherlock, wide-eyed. “This okay?"

“More than.” The contact of their skin is pure electricity sparking up Sherlock’s arm. It’s better than heroin. More addictive.

A shiver runs through him. It doesn't escape John's notice, and he smiles all white teeth pink tongue bitten between them, crinkled shining eyes, the water reflected in them. “Good.”

The air gets stickier as they move away from the cooling breezes off the river. Their tee shirts are clinging to their bellies and backs. John’s hand solid and hot in Sherlock’s. They fall into the ever present crowd of people crossing Tower Bridge, jostled against each other, hips bumping. The drawbridge is going up to allow a boat to pass under. The crowd presses together, stopped, and John looks up at Sherlock, mouth ticked to the side.

“What?” Sherlock isn’t used to people smiling this much. It’s disconcerting.

“Just, like...really glad I decided to eat that sandwich in that alley yesterday. For a lot of reasons.”

“As am I.”

John squeezes his hand, and Sherlock can almost pretend they’re just on a first date, about to go to the cinema, share pizza afterwards and get off on the sitting room sofa before the parents walk in. That they're normal teenagers, instead of a junkie and a messed up abused kid from the suburbs who don't even know yet if they'll have food today.

"John?" He shouldn’t ask, he shouldn’t. He knows this. He shouldn’t ask half the questions he asks of people. He just has to _know_ , has to know every detail. He used to be able to deduce people without asking. Now his brain’s too heroin muddled for that. It’s all still in there, his intelligence, it’s burning like cinders at the ends of his damaged neurons, but he can’t _think_.

"Yeah, Sherlock?"

"Why'd your parents, you know..."

"Why'd they hit me?" John’s eyes meet Sherlock’s, unwavering. There’s no shame there. He already knows it’s not his fault.

"You don't have to -- I shouldn't have asked, I'm sorry."

"No, no...it's okay. They hit me because I didn't make first team in rugby, or because the dinner burned, because their favourite show wasn't on telly, because it was fucking Tuesday.” He pauses, looks up at Sherlock from under his lashes, “Because I like blokes as much as I like girls." John steals closer, pressing his whole arm to Sherlock's, their trainers lined up next to each other, and suddenly his head is leaning against Sherlock's shoulder. "It doesn't matter anymore. What they think. I'm never going back there."

The exact weight of John's head on his stomach. He still wants that, but this. This is blissful. The curve of John's skull hard against his bone thin shoulder. Sherlock can feel John's heartbeat in his temple. He swallows against a sudden surge of emotions he doesn’t have names for. John’s hand shifts, wraps around Sherlock’s from the front, John’s sweaty palm against the top of Sherlock’s hand, his fingertips pressing into Sherlock’s lifeline. John’s elbow jutting into the crease of Sherlock’s. Their arms fit together like they were made to do just this. He’s never in his life felt this kind of connection to another person. Not even Molly. Not even his own brother. He doesn’t have friends.

"You're amazing." Sherlock whispers, his voice half caught in his throat.

"So are you."

"Me? God, I haven't done anything since we met except be rude to you, get myself nearly raped, humiliate myself at Jim’s, and be a needy fucking drug addict. I spent half of last night so high I couldn't stand. I don’t even know what the hell I said to you. I haven't done anything remotely amazing." Sherlock laughs, bile rising in his esophagus, sick at himself. Of course this won't last. He's delusional. He's got nothing to give back to John, nothing beautiful.

"Well, _I_ think you're amazing. I don't give a fuck what you say." John rolls his face against Sherlock's shoulder as the drawbridge lowers and the crowd pushes forward en mass. “I always loved this bridge.”

“Doesn’t everyone?”

“Well. Yeah. But not just because it’s pretty, you know. I -- my sister used to bring me here when we were little, and we’d eat ice creams and watch the boats. She used to say,” John clears his throat, makes a rippley motion with his mouth. “She used to say things would get better. That we’d be alright. Somehow I always -- this bridge makes me think of my sister and ice cream. That’s all.”

There’s nothing adequate to say to that. Sherlock tightens his fingers around John’s as they cross the bridge, feet rattling across the iron grates. In sync, they cross to the other side and John tugs on his hand. “This way. There’s a NatWest on Tooley Street.”

There’s a few full skips sitting out, it’s hot again, flies everywhere. Southwark is quiet, not many tourists this time of day across the river. There’s a few Americans taking pictures of Tower Bridge from this side. They look lost and nervous, shy away whispering to each other when John and Sherlock pass. They’re both dirty and sweaty, Sherlock’s suddenly painfully cognisant of how dirty they are, how much they both must smell. Like the mildewy tube station, like unwashed hair and cigarettes. They’re clearly street kids, there’s no way round it. No way to hide. Sherlock’s not embarrassed for himself, never is, about hardly anything. But he _hates_ the way those people looked at John. Like he was trash, like he was dangerous.

John notices his silence as they stop walking in front of a NatWest branch with an ATM in the stone wall outside. “You okay?”

“Yeah. We should try to get a shower today. The ones at Paddington Station are only 20p.”

“Just the one?” John smirks as he fishes a wallet out of his back pocket.

“What?”

“Just the one shower?” He arches an eyebrow at Sherlock. Oh. _OH_. He’s flirting. It’s been so long, so long since anyone’s been playful with Sherlock like this, he didn’t even comprehend. Jim was the last one, but his teasing always had an element of cruelty woven into the joke. John's good natured, as different from Jim as it's possible to be.

“How can you be so...I mean, god, everything is shit. It’s _shit_. How are you like this?”

“I don’t know. I wasn’t. Until yesterday, I wasn’t. I was miserable. Then, I guess I wasn’t anymore.” John holds him in those eyes again, locked together like the world doesn’t even exist outside of them, then the spell breaks as he looks away, inserts his card in the slot, punches in his code. “Moment of truth.”

Sherlock leans over his shoulder. “Watson? That’s your last name?”

“Yeah, problem?” John turns his head, and the tip of his nose brushes Sherlock’s cheek. His stomach contracts, a shiver running down his neck.

“No. I like it. It’s...solid. It suits you.”

John doesn’t respond to that, but exhales in a relieved rush, looking at the screen. “My card worked. It’s all still there. Should I get it all out? While I still can?”

“Yes, of course. We’ll go back home and hide it. No one will find it, I promise.”

“I’m going to have to go in. I can’t withdraw all this from the machine.” John looks Sherlock up and down. “Maybe you should…”

Sherlock swallows the shame in his throat. Never embarrassed about anything. Until John. “Stay outside?”

“It’s not _me_ , Sherlock -- I don’t care how you look. I like how you look. It’s just. I’m afraid they would...take more notice of us. Maybe not let me...” John’s eyes, so tender, knows he’s hurt Sherlock’s feelings. Sherlock can see the apology all over his face. “We need this money. I just don’t want to fuck it up, okay? I’ll be right back.” He runs his hand down Sherlock’s forearm, thumb over the scabs. He doesn’t care. He doesn’t cringe. He doesn’t think Sherlock’s disgusting or pathetic. He’s getting this money out for them, for them, so they can have something better.

_How is it he didn’t know John Watson existed this time yesterday morning?_

“Okay. I’ll just go round the corner and burn one, alright?” Sherlock tries to hide the hurt in his eyes as he shakes a cigarette loose, and obviously doesn’t succeed, because John’s hand closes around his wrist as he starts to walk away.

“Hey.” John’s voice soft, lilting, it wraps around Sherlock’s throat like a warm scarf. “Don’t be upset, okay. We’re gonna have some fun after this. I promise.”

“Okay.” They stare at each other, John’s sweaty fingers wrapped around Sherlock’s thin wrist. Sherlock shakes his arm. “Well, go, for fuck’s sake. Go get the money.”

John throws his head back and laughs full stop. It’s fucking Christmas. It’s bells tinkling and mince pie and fairy lights reflecting on the river. It’s absolutely the most beautiful and comforting noise Sherlock has ever heard in his life.

“You’re right. Okay, I’m going. Don’t run away.”

“That’s a terrible pun, John.”

“Yeah.” John winks and pulls the door to the bank open, disappears in a woosh of frigid air conditioning.

***

“It’s completely impossible to find this unless you’re searching for it, and no one would.” They’re kneeling next to each other far back on the tunnel trackway, knees digging into hundred year old gravel and bits of rubbish. Sherlock jiggles the loose tile and it pulls loose with a little screech. He reaches into the cavity and retrieves a rusty metal box with a key sticking out. “It’s like our own safety deposit, John. No one would ever think to look here, and even if they did, we have the key.”

“Well, someone could just break it.” John’s looking at him dubiously, torch in one hand, in the other, all the money they have, minus £300 John’s pocketed.

“John.” Sherlock fixes him with the stare that even used to make Mycroft flinch a little. “Who on earth is going to come into this grotty old station, jump onto the tracks, and search for a loose tile with a cubby behind? The odds of that are --”

“You did.” John arches an eyebrow at him.

“Well.” Sherlock’s momentarily gobsmacked. People don’t challenge him. He likes it, how John’s not intimidated by him. “Yeah, but that’s -- I’m -- most people wouldn’t do that.”

“You just have to know everything, about everything. Don’t you?”

“Yes, generally. Or I used to.” Sherlock takes the money gently out of John’s fist. “I swear to you. No one will find it.”

“I trust you.” John’s voice is deadly serious, an octave below where it normally is.

Sherlock realises he doesn’t mean the money, not really. He means where they’re going together, what’s happening between them. It’s about Sherlock not sleeping with anyone for money anymore. It’s about them being a team, just the two of them against the world. It’s about _them_.

“I trust you, too.” Sherlock unlocks the box and swings the lid open, ready to stuff the wad of cash in as quickly as possible.

John’s too quick. He reaches a hand under the money and extracts the box. “What’s all this, then?”

Sherlock’s treasures. The only things he can’t bear to lose.

“That’s um. A picture of me and my brother, and our dog. My acceptance letter to uni. And um, my friend Molly’s hair barrette.” Do not think about it, do not think about any of them.

“Molly? Girlfriend?” John doesn’t look jealous, merely curious, the sparkly purple heart laying in his palm, a strand of Molly’s hair still stuck in it.

“No.” Sherlock huffs a laugh, despite the gravity of the moment. He imagines the look on Molly’s face if someone suggested they were dating; she’d laugh and punch his arm. _Sherlock? God no. He’s like my annoying brother. Yuck._ “Not really my area. Just a good friend.”

“What happened to her?”

“She was like us. She lived here with me for a while. One night, she just, never came home. That was five months ago.”

“I’m sorry.” John doesn’t probe any further, but sets the barrette down gently on top of the papers and hands the box back to Sherlock with gentle hands. “I didn’t mean to pry.”

“It’s okay.”

“So. Now. You need, you know…” John nods at Sherlock’s arms, and he instinctively covers them and with his hands. Humiliation burns more brightly when the need for it isn’t overpowering every other emotion. John pulls his hands off his arms, holds them in his own much smaller ones. “Don’t be embarrassed. I don’t want you to do it, but...you need it, right?”

Sherlock nods, unable to speak in the face of such unfailing kindness and understanding. He really doesn’t know how to handle John Watson. _John Watson. Watson._ That feels good on his tongue, the way his lips curl around the _w_ sound, the soft _a_.

“Well. Then we’ll get it for you, and then we won’t have to worry about it later. Can we go there, to Jim’s,” John spits out the name with no small amount of disgust, which settles warmly into Sherlock’s gut, having John loathe Jim so entirely on his behalf, “this time of day?”

“It’s not a good idea to carry it around for too long. You’ll get caught. We’ll go later. I’m okay for now.”

“You sure?”

Nod, agree. Even though it’s so tempting to get high right now, before you’re sick, before it hurts. “Yes. I’m fine.”

“Okay, well, if you’re sure. I have an idea of where we should go, then. Come on.”

***

Sherlock shakes the water out of his hair like a dog, feeling cleaner, both inside and out, then he’s felt in months. “This was a brilliant idea, John.”

“I do come up with a good one now and then.” John’s spread eagle on the top bunk. “I just knew a hostel would have showers and beds and free food in the morning. We can eat as much as we want. We can sit there until 10:30 and drink coffee and stuff ourselves full of rashers and tomatoes and beans on toast...god I’m fucking drooling just thinking about it.”

Sherlock laughs. He’s laughed more in the last day and half than he has in five months. Maybe more than he ever has. John’s made a light inside him that seems to flare brighter with every hour they spend in each other’s company. "You just ate."

They'd hit the nearest Nando's with a vengeance after leaving the tube station. Split a whole chicken between them, and sides and rolls, smeared thickly with butter, giant fountain Cokes they’d refilled twice; a meal made for four people and they'd demolished it in thirty minutes. John had reached out with his napkin, wiped a smidge of potato off of Sherlock’s chin, his eyes luminous, the gesture so delicate Sherlock barely felt it. Then he dropped his napkin, tore into a buttered roll and grinned at Sherlock with half the roll stuffed in his cheek. John is a complete conundrum. Sherlock's never in his life met someone who spins him around like this, who he can't read, can't predict what they'll do next. _I don’t know what to do with you._

The last time he'd eaten so well was the Christmas before he'd left home. His mother's homemade bread warm on the cutting board, a huge rack of lamb glistening with fat, his father telling stories about work and Mycroft rolling his eyes. Don't remember it, Sherlock. Don't think about it.

John still hadn't asked him why he was out here.

After Nando's, stuffed so full of food they were sluggish and sleepy, John had tucked his warm hand back in Sherlock's, and dragged him into an H&M. "We both need fresh clothes, come on."

People stared at them, but Sherlock held tight to John's hand and shot a vicious sneer at anyone who looked too long. They'd bought off the sale rack, shorts for £5, tee shirt for £3, a few pairs of new pants for 50p each, and swung their bags from their hands as they walked. Feeling almost normal.

Sherlock rubs his hair with a towel, pulls on his new clothes. He hasn't said thank you. He hasn't...he must. John’s done so much, changed everything for him. Clears his throat. "John. I just wanted to say --"

"Don't. Don't thank me." John rolls to his side, peers off the edge of the bunk down at Sherlock. "This is for both of us. I'm not being selfless."

"You're beautiful." He bursts out, unable to hold back any longer the words that have been living right behind his teeth all day. John flushes, his cheeks glowing crimson, and those unearthly long eyelashes flutter as he looks down.

"No one has ever...I'm not, Sherlock. Not at all. I'm short and plain and average. No one has ever said..." John can't even look at him.

Sherlock moves forward, wraps his hands around the blonde wood bunk frame and steps into the bottom bunk so they're at eye level. He takes John's chin between his thumb and forefinger and forces him to look up. "You are. That no one's ever told you that is inconsequential. It doesn't change the observable and immutable fact that you _are_."

John's expression softens, and he leans forward and grasps Sherlock by the forearms. "Come up here."

"Okay." One long leg tossed over the rail and then he's flopped next to John, who props himself up on his elbow and just looks at him. There's heat behind the blue eyes, his pulse beating steady in his muscular neck; Sherlock's heart starts to thump faster.

"Sherlock." John's hand on his chest. John's head against his shoulder. "This okay?"

"Yeah. Good." So nervous he feels like a virgin, he goes stiff as John's face rolls into his neck, breath hot against his Adam's apple. He’s so tender with Sherlock it hurts. No one’s ever touched him like this.

"Um. You sure? Because you're not acting like it's fine. At all." Furrowed brow, perfect red lips pressed in a thin line. John looks perplexed. He blinks a few times, leans away from Sherlock. "I thought we were..."

There's a lump in his throat. Just a physical reaction to stress, the glottis opening to allow more air. It doesn't _mean_ anything. Oh fuck, there's tears welling up. _Fuck fuck._ He cannot, cannot cry in front of John.

"Why do you want this? Why? I'm a fucked up junkie, and I haven't even told you why I'm out here. I could have murdered my whole family, I could have done terrible things, John. You don't know. I haven't done anything to make you feel this way. I don't understand, John. Am I a charity for you? You just a want to help someone to make yourself feel better and I looked like a good opportunity?"

"No." John pulls away further, looking angry now. "Fuck, no. How can you -- why are you saying that?"

 _I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. I fuck everything up, I'm a hurricane. No one can bear me for long._ Every instinct in his body, in his mind is screaming at him to wrap his arms around John's neck and hold on. To kiss him tender and long, until their lips are raw. To stroke his fingertips down John's strong arms, put his mouth against his freshly washed hair and breathe deep.

"John. I just. I don't do this."

"Do what?"

"I don't get close to people. What Jim said, he's right. I don't have friends." The room is so cool, air conditioning pumping down through a dusty vent right above the bunk. There's a long tangle of dust and hair flapping against the ceiling; Sherlock fixes his eyes on it.

"And we've known each other for like eighteen hours, and you don't get why I like you so damned much." John puts his hand back on Sherlock's chest, drawing little figure eights with his index finger. "I don't really get why I like you either, except I just can't not. I kind of feel like I've known you forever already. It's not...it's like it's already done. It wasn't a choice. Does that make sense?"

Unable to speak, Sherlock nods.

"As for the drugs, I don't believe you'll be like this forever. I really don't. We'll sort it out." John curls up next to Sherlock, sighing. “Can we just stay like this? For a little while?”

Sherlock allows himself to pretend. To pretend that it’s alright, that everything will work out. He wraps one long spindly arm around John’s broad shoulders, brushes his knuckles slowly up and down John’s bicep. John sinks closer, relaxes into Sherlock’s chest, his knee hooks over Sherlock’s thigh. Sherlock feels his breath growing even under his arm, his head getting heavier.

“You didn’t sleep at all last night, did you?”

“Mmm. Not really.” John’s voice is thick with drowsiness. “Was watching you.”

“Go to sleep, John.” Fingers up and down John’s spine. Bump. Bump. His back is strong, muscled from rugby, a sharp dip where his waist curves in, a bit more pudge than Sherlock expected at the small of his back. Runs his fingers back up to John’s hairline, down again, enough pressure not to tickle.

“Mmmkay.” John snuffles, rubs his nose with his fist, sighs.

Sherlock doesn’t believe in god. He’s a scientist. Even now, still the scientist. He’s never prayed, he doesn’t see magic when he looks up at the sky, just burning gases and infinite emptiness. But as John Watson falls asleep on his shoulder, humming little noises that have no right to be as welcome familiar comforting beautiful as they are, he looks up at the stark white ceiling and whispers _thank you_ to whoever might be listening.

***

The sun’s setting, massive and orange, the sky purple with heat waves shimmering in the muggy air, as Sherlock and John pick their way through empty bottles and flyaway wrappers behind the housing estate and climb the concrete steps together for the second night in a row.

“If he fucks with you tonight…” John sends Sherlock a warning glare, threads his fingers through Sherlock’s. “Last night was different. Now we’re -- _now you’re mine._ ”

A fluttering wave crests in in Sherlock’s stomach and stays there. Half nerves, terrified of what would happen to John if he really challenged Jim.

“Please don’t. Let’s just get what we came for and go.”

John’s hair is shining blonde and white streaked in the orange light, eyes cerulean, the new maroon button down and dark denim shorts accentuating every curve of muscle. Sherlock swallows. It’s been forever since he wanted someone. He wants John so badly his mouth goes dry.

“Alright. I’ll behave. But in and out, alright? None of this hanging about and chatting bullshit.” John’s become increasingly more physically imposing as they’ve walked. His shoulders more square, his jaw jutting forward, fists clenching.

“John. Can I tell you why?”

“What?” John stops them, yanking on Sherlock's hand, his brow furrowed. “Why what?”

“Why -- the drugs.”

John brow gentles, uncreases. He reaches up as he did the night before, and brushes Sherlock’s fringe off of his forehead. “Only if you want to.”

Sherlock sucks in a hard deep breath, filling his lungs, and holds it for a second. Lets it out in a slow exhale. “Okay, so I’m a genius, yeah. Like smartest person in a room, always. Except for my brother. My parents always pushed me, gently, but pushing. Cause they knew I could take it. Wanted me to be top of everything, top marks, top in violin. I knew it was out of love, concern, but I always kind of -- hated it. I wanted to do things my way, always my way. So, I had Jim, first, like that was enough, to have the chavvy boy on the side, you know, my parents had no idea, and it was fun and felt dangerous. And then, that wasn’t enough. I needed something... _more_. I needed, I don't know, a thrill, you know? Something really dangerous. And Jim, he, gave me some -- stuff -- one night. I was really stressed out about uni, I had just started and it was hard, you know, actually hard. I didn’t have all the answers already. I’d always had all the answers, John. It was frightening to have to study, have to work. I know that’s so shitty and ridiculous of me, but it’s true, and then Jim said this would help, that it would calm me down, let me relax. And it did. And I couldn’t -- I wanted to be calm, I needed to stop -- thinking all the time. And I failed. I failed for the first time in my life. I failed my whole term. And I just walked away.”

John’s chewing his lip thoughtfully. “You couldn’t go home?”

“I could have. At some point, I guess. But, I stayed with Jim until that became intolerable, and every day that passed not going home, it just became harder and harder to do so. And then, you know...I needed more and more, and somehow there was never enough money and...” Sherlock breathes in again, watches John for his reaction.

He’s quiet for a moment. There’s a cacophony around them, rats beginning to squeak and scurry in the dusky light, the children yelling at each other, the thwack and ping of the pipes hitting cricket balls, a dog barking in the distance. It’s all muted, the world turned down to it’s lowest volume by John Watson’s eyes on his.

“What’s your last name, Sherlock?”

It’s the most unexpected question. “Holmes.”

“Sherlock Holmes.” John rolls the name in his mouth, grins, nods. “I like it. It’s unique, like you.”

John’s hand snakes around the back of Sherlock’s neck, pulls him down until their foreheads are touching, their noses aligned. His voice is a whisper, “I don’t care about any of that stuff. I mean. I do _care_ , but it doesn’t make me think less of you. We’re going to help each other. It won’t be like this forever. I know it.”

"I believe you." And he does. There's his armour down, he's unprotected against whatever may come, but he believes in John Watson.

John tilts his head up, nudges against Sherlock's nose. Deep breath. Their eyes closed. Like a whisper, there's the barest touch of John's lips against Sherlock’s, just not even a kiss really, but touching. Sherlock reciprocates, pulling John’s bottom lip the smallest fraction between his own, and John surges forward, the emotion of everything the last days have wrought coming out between their hungry mouths, his tongue slipping deep into Sherlock’s mouth as they cling to each other. John's touch is so soft, pulling at Sherlock's lips, his tongue moving in counter rhythm. John’s hands in his hair. Sherlock’s hands fanned across John’s scapula, pressing them together. John's licking across Sherlock’s upper lip, making desperate little whimpering noises that make Sherlock tremble. Sherlock's knees go weak. That's never happened before when he’s been kissed. Never. It's silly, it's absurd, out of a bad rom com. _People's knees don't give out in real life when someone kisses them._

But Sherlock's knees are giving out, and every other muscle is too. Warmth rushes through his body like a tide and he's falling, falling through air through time out of himself and into John. _This is why. This is why they call it falling in love. Suddenly that ridiculous metaphor makes complete sense._

John pulls back with a nibble at Sherlock's lower lip, breathing hard. He thumbs across Sherlock’s cheekbone, “Okay?”

“Are you joking? I can barely stand.” Sherlock huffs a laugh, rocks his forehead against John’s. “Nothing ambiguous about _that_.”

“Oh, was I being ambiguous before? I thought I was pretty straightforward, the whole _you’re mine_ bit and all.”

“Now it’s very clear.” Kiss him again. Gentle. Slow. Lips pliant and sweet. John’s hand at the small of his back. Sherlock pulls away this time. “We should go. Get it over with.”

“Yeah.” Kiss swollen lips, John bites into the lower one and sends Sherlock a look rife with meaning, blazing hot. “You’re not going to get like you were last night, yeah?”

“No.” Sherlock realises he doesn’t want to, doesn’t want to black out, doesn’t want to forget everything. Because now there are moments worth remembering. He takes John’s hand, brings it to his mouth and sucks a fingertip between his lips. “I have plans for tonight that are better.”

John swallows, his sweaty face flushing even redder, licks his lips. “Good.”

***

John’s perched on his knees at the end of the sleeping bag, back in the tube station, watching Sherlock with concerned eyes. His torch laying next to him, shining a pale light over the bottom half of Sherlock’s reclining form. Sherlock didn’t want to get them kicked out of the hostel doing his drugs there, and John wanted to check on the money, so they came back to St Mark’s, the stars coming out one by one as they walked back hand in hand.

Sherlock withdraws the needle from his arm, rubs a thumb across the small bead of blood that appears, and licks it off. He tucks everything back inside the little bag he keeps it in, winds the belt up, and sets it all underneath a blanket with a milk crate on top. He looks up at John, his stomach lurching at the openness of his expression, the tension of his neck, his back rigid, trying so hard to be accepting of this. There’s an ache inside him, desperate to erase this pain for John.

“It was just a little bit. Way less than last night. Just enough to make me not -- shake or anything.” He’s floating just a little, head suddenly light, skull disconnected from his spinal column. He feels himself swooning over to the the left a bit, listing, and puts a hand down on the damp tile floor to catch himself. “Just let me sit here for a minute.”

“ _Sherlock_.” John murmurs, and crawls forward, puts his knees on either side of Sherlock’s thighs. Strong arms around his back, pulling him close. John’s mouth in his hair. “Sherlock Sherlock…” He whispers over and over, rocking back and forth a little bit.

“You’re so sad, John. Why are you so sad?” Sherlock can hear he’s a bit off, his voice sounds different. “Don’t be sad. We’re going to go have fun tonight, just like -- we’re gonna go on a date.”

“Yeah?” John laughs, but it still sounds sad. His nose rubs against Sherlock’s temple.

Everything’s so slow, Sherlock’s brain is slow. Can’t think. Doesn’t want to _think_. John’s right here, smelling like shampoo and sweat and new clothes. He turns, nose bumping John’s, kisses him messily, bites down on his lower lip, and John arches up with a gasp, his arms tightening around Sherlock’s neck. His scalp tingles, heat curling down the back of his neck, John’s tongue in his mouth, between his teeth, sucking on the little tip of it. John making wonderful breathy noises against his mouth, his hips hitching closer closer, seeking out friction, heat. Sherlock’s hands close around his waist and he can feel every muscle writhing tensing rippling as John arcs his back.

“Oh my god, John. I want you so badly, I can’t wait...god, right here. _Please, please_.” Sherlock’s mouth against his neck, pulling on a tendon sucking hot salty skin between his teeth, he can feel the vibrations of John’s vocal chords through his lips. Nips at John’s skin, sucks hard enough to leave a bruise, and John’s wriggling on his lap, his thighs tensing. He tries to lean back, pull John on top of him. It's feels like he's suspended underwater, and John's the only way he can breathe.

“Sherlock, Sherlock...stop, let’s...I don’t want to _here_.” John puts his hands against Sherlock’s chest, pushes him away. His mouth is open, panting, bottom lip so pouty and full from being kissed that just looking at it makes Sherlock shiver with anticipation. “I thought we were going on a date. Remember?”

His eyelids are so heavy. John's so warm. He wraps a hand around the back of John's head, fingers in feathery soft hair, and pulls him forward. Traces the outline of John’s mouth with his tongue, and John moans, momentarily giving in and leaning into Sherlock's touch; then pushes up to standing so abruptly that Sherlock feels dizzy watching him. “Come on. We’re getting out of here. We have a clean place to be tonight, with air conditioning and sheets and a fucking full breakfast tomorrow morning. I don't want to -- do it -- on this dirty sleeping bag. Let’s go. I want to go.”

“Okay.” Sherlock allows John to help him up, and he leans against him, watching his face in the dim light as he bends down to pick up the torch on the floor. “You’re so beautiful. I want to go dancing with you. I love to dance. Did I tell you that?”

“No. You didn’t.” John’s looking at him with that expression again, the one that hurts. The one that’s so affectionate and sad that it makes his stomach cramp. He doesn't want John to look at him like that right now. He wants John's eyes full of heat, their bodies pressed together to a thumping rhythm, he wants to lick the sweat off John's neck in the muggy darkness of a club, he wants John’s hands inside his shirt where everyone can see, he _wants_ , wants so desperately he can't think about anything else.

“Oh. I’m a wonderful dancer. Used to all the time, before. I want to dance with you. Will you? Please?” He doesn’t normally talk this way. He knows he sounds childish and needy. He’s just high enough to not have control over exactly what he says but not high enough to not notice. He’s still mulling this over and suddenly John’s pulling him up the steps out of St Mark’s, Sherlock tripping over his own feet.

They emerge into the cool night, wind whipping off the river, the lights along the river blooming coils of fire in Sherlock’s vision. The bridge looms above them, pinnacles piercing into the bright white moon above. John throws the canvases back in place, lays the wooden planks across them.

He turns to Sherlock with that blazing look he’s given him back at Jim’s place. “Well, then let’s go dancing, Sherlock.”

**  
  
**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologise profusely for giving you all this insanely long chapter and no sex. I'm really sorry. The boys just need to wait for the right moment. It's coming, I promise.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm not giving nothing away, sorry guys. You're just going to have to read it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These were the songs I was listening to writing this. They might be good soundtracks for reading it, too.
> 
> John Digweed: https://play.spotify.com/album/312sviLaaVh1ocnqN8bpsC
> 
> Walk the Moon: https://play.spotify.com/album/1QhonXpNQq8wrGEKX0ofbk/3e0yTP5trHBBVvV32jwXqF
> 
> Metric: https://play.spotify.com/artist/1rCIEwPp5OnXW0ornlSsRl
> 
> The National: https://play.spotify.com/album/2JhR4tjuc3MIKa8v2JaKze/6gf7WF9nXNON9HdNtrdEDq

John’s arms slide naturally around Sherlock’s waist as they walk through the rapidly cooling night. The temperature has dropped ten degrees in the last twenty minutes, the cloud cover clearing to reveal a deep purple brown October sky. The whole city shimmers with light, and Sherlock’s starting to see them more clearly, coming down a little. The air smells like autumn finally. Autumn’s always been Sherlock’s favourite season, the smell of wood smoke in the air, dried leaves rustling underfoot. His father standing by the wide open front door, moss green cardigan and black galoshes. _Out for a walk with me, Sherlock? The trees in the wood are just starting to turn._

The memory of his father almost doesn’t hurt. It’s...fond. Like he might see him again. Be welcomed back with a clap on the back and a hot cuppa. _Where have you been, son? Have a sit down._

John. John has given him this, this bud of hope in his chest that seems to be blooming larger with every passing minute. He _believes_ John when he says he’ll be clean again, when he says they’ll fix everything together. He used to dismiss the idea that a person could change someone else’s life, that anyone could have that much power over another person. But then Jim came along, first love and all that. Sherlock used to be entranced by him, fascinated by his cruelty, his cold calculating mind. How he could switch it off and be all laughing, warm smiles and hot skin, rolling Sherlock into the bed and falling asleep curled against him. Two people have now entirely changed Sherlock’s life. Jim took his life away from him, and John’s giving it back.

They’re trundling down New Kent Road, past high rise estates and takeaways, shops shuttered with aluminium doors, the wind swirling the rubbish in the gutters. The street’s jammed with people, and Sherlock wonders why, until he realises it’s Saturday night. Days of the week lose all meaning in the street, he hasn’t bothered keeping track in months. But it’s Saturday, and everyone’s going out to have fun, pretend the world isn’t awful and dark for a few hours. Dance and drink and fuck and forget about it.

Except Sherlock doesn’t _want_ to forget a single second of this night. He wants to record it all, lock it away in his memory. He’s making a room, a room in his mind, just for John. A place to catalogue him. The smell of his neck when Sherlock wakes up with his nose in it. The sound of him slurping soup. What his favourite books are, his favourite rugby team. Whether he prefers biscuits with or without chocolate. The feeling of his mouth on Sherlock’s skin. The colour of his hair in every possible light. To watch him age, remember the first laugh line that appears around his mouth, the first time he gets a grey hair.

He realises with a start that he’s imagining a life. A future. He hasn’t thought about that in over a year, that he could have a long life. Him and John, grey bearded, sitting in matching armchairs, reading books and looking at each other affectionately over the tops of their half moon glasses. _Ridiculous, Sherlock. Romantic notions that have no basis in reality._ But he files the image away in the John room anyway.

John’s chilly, goosebumps rising along his forearms as Sherlock winds a hand over the arm laying over his belly. John’s other arm around his back, hands clasped above his right hip. His entire torso turned toward Sherlock, chest pressed against his side.

“Isn’t it hard to walk like that?” Sherlock lets his other hand slip down and rest on John’s arse, squeeze a little. He’s going to have him tonight. Just the thought is intoxicating. It’s been so long since he wanted anyone, and it’s never been like this. This is intense, tangible. It’s thrumming through his veins like racing fuel, he’s consciously fighting against just pushing John up against a brick wall in some grotty old alleyway. His skin is too tight, from John or from coming down, probably both. His eyes are stinging from the wind. He wants to shut them against John’s bare back, flutter his eyelashes against his spine. He wants him writhing underneath him.

John looks up at him, his eyes warm and black in the darkness. “No. I like my arms around you.”

“I do too.” Sherlock ducks his head down while John’s still looking up, steals a kiss from that perfect mouth. John licks into Sherlock’s mouth, curling his tongue around the end of Sherlock’s. The toe of John’s trainer catches on an uneven line in the sidewalk, and they both stumble forward, laughing against each other’s lips. Two women walking past give them a disgusted glare, all bunched foreheads and thin mouths. One mimes _twinks_ viciously at them, her mouth in an ugly sneer, and a red hot flare of anger ignites in Sherlock’s chest. He gives them the two fingered salute, waggles his tongue between his fingers to be especially crude, and John grabs his wrist to yank his hand down. The women walk away shaking their heads derisively.

“Sherlock!” John’s half laughing, trying to look disapproving. “You can’t _do_ that.”

“Why not? Fuck them. Fuck anyone who looks at you like that.” Sherlock’s twisting backwards, watching them walk away.

“Hey. Weren’t you the one telling me earlier that Jim wasn’t worth it? They aren’t either.” John’s hand around Sherlock’s chin, pulling his head round to look at him. His hands are so strong, the knuckles knobby, calloused. “Hey. Right? We’re out to have fun, yeah? Not get arrested for picking a fight with two bigoted middle aged old twats.”

“No, you’re right.” Sherlock feels the anger leaking out of him, watching John’s golden pink smiling face, worried searching blue eyes. “I have this feeling that you’re almost always right.”

John rolls his eyes and shakes his head, lets go of Sherlock’s chin and leans into his side. “I have this feeling you’ve almost never said that to anyone else.”

“No one else deserved to have it said.” John chin tilts up, and Sherlock’s down, and they’re kissing again, tongues curling wet and hot against each other, cool skin, John’s hand drifting down over his hip.

They walk into a light pole.

John’s bent over laughing, his hands against his knees, then one arm holding his stomach, guffawing. Laughing so hard he’s crying, as Sherlock rubs his shoulder and frowns down at him. “We can’t snog and walk, Sherlock.”

“It was worth a try.” Sherlock smiles reluctantly, unable to hold it in. “My shoulder hurts.”

“Yeah?” John straightens, gives Sherlock those huge round flirty eyes, from up under his lashes. Moves forward and brushes his lips over Sherlock’s shoulder, nuzzles his nose against it. Sinks his teeth into it.

“Ouch! That didn’t help, John.”

“Sorry, couldn’t help it.” John ducks under Sherlock’s arm, twists and starts walking backwards, grinning and pulling Sherlock along by his fingers. “I want to have fun with you tonight, okay? Laugh and drink and see you dance.”

“Yeah, me too.” They swing onto Lambeth Road and the crowd changes suddenly, no more mothers with buggies and prams, no more families out too late. Here it’s swarms of club kids, neon shirts and leather jeans, platform boots and glowing necklaces. Sherlock smells weed in the air, there’s a queue outside Fire, wrapping round the side of the building, everyone already dancing, snogging, drinking. A writhing mass of people. The energy in the air is crackling.

He’s forgotten how good this feels.

He pulls John into the queue, tugs him flush up against him and twitches his hips in a little circle. John flushes and drapes his arms around Sherlock’s neck. Sherlock settles his hands right above John’s arse, nestled comfortably in the small of his back.

“So. You’re a club kid, eh?” John laughs, and Sherlock dives down, captures the rest of his laugh in his mouth. John licks into his mouth, purring a happy little noise, and Sherlock kisses him harder, pulling him up until he’s off his feet, toes barely touching the sidewalk.

“Yeah." Sherlock mutters as he breaks the kiss, lowers John back down. “I _was_ , anyway. It’s fun, you’ll see.”

The line moves forward, incrementally at first, and then seemingly in a rush, everyone’s pushing through the wide open front doors, cool air sweeping from outside into the already steamy club. There’s a thumping beat surrounding them as they push their way up to the bar, John’s fingers tightly threaded through Sherlock’s. It’s shoulder to shoulder, Sherlock leaning halfway over the bar, trying to get the bartender’s attention.

He starts moving before he’s even realised he’s doing it, twitching his shoulders, rolling his hips a little. John presses up behind him, a hand possessively wrapped around his waist. Lips against his ear, “Sherlock. You know I can’t fucking dance at all, right?”

The laugh bubbles up from deep down, and he turns to grin at John, yells in his ear, “I know, you don’t have to. You just stand there, alright?”

“Yeah, alright.”

The bartender comes over, Sherlock orders them two Kamikazes, realises John has all the money. The club is playing with his head, the thrumming of the beat, the lights swirling and flashing, the noise. John’s hot hard body pressed against him.

He licks a stripe up John’s neck, purrs in his ear, “You have all the money, Daddy.”

“Oh, _fuck you_ , don’t call me that, you sod.” John slaps at his arm, glaring at him and wrinkling his nose, but pulls out his wallet and hands him a tenner all the same.

Sherlock pays the bartender, careful to get their change, and hands John a plastic cup.

“What is this?” John squints and sniffs the cup.

“Um, vodka and orange and lime. It’s good, drink it.”

They throw the shots back, John choking a bit on the strong drink, and Sherlock yanks John out into the throng of the dance floor. Sweaty bodies, moving in time with each other, always that one outlier who’s doing whatever the hell he wants to do, stoned off his nut. John just stands there, looking amused and a bit uncomfortable.

Sherlock runs his hands over his chest, slides around his back, dives his arms over John’s shoulders and nuzzles against his earlobe. “Relax, John. Loosen up.”

The lights go lower as the music gets louder. Sherlock grinds his pelvis up against John’s hip, slides his hands up his arms and raises them over his head, shimmying against him. The beat’s drawing him in, still a little high from the heroin, and now a bit of alcohol. Sways around to John’s front, his back to John’s chest, gyrates his hips backward. John’s hands slide down his arms, over his tee shirt and onto the bare skin above his jeans. Sherlock clamps his hands on John’s arse, moves his hips back and forth.

“There you are. I knew you could move if you just loosened up.” Sherlock tilts his head back, shouts in John’s ear. “More drinks?”

John shakes his head but smiles. “Sure, why not?”

They whirl and trip their way over to the bar again. Sherlock leans his elbows on the edge and waves at the bartender. The bloke next to him, pink hair and septum pierced, turns, looks him up and down. Cocks an eyebrow.

Before Sherlock can open his mouth, John’s got an arm in between him and Pink Hair. “ _Oi!_ He’s taken.” Jerks his head toward the dance floor in a clear dismissal, expression icy.

Pink Hair holds his hands up in deference and turns quickly away, tossing over his shoulder, "Sorry, love. No harm meant."

John spins round and kisses Sherlock’s bicep, looking up at him with eyes full of flame, his eyelashes reflecting blue and purple in the flashing lights. “I’m the jealous type, just so you know.”

“I like it. Don't stop being jealous.” Sherlock can’t remember the last time things were this good. It can’t possibly last, and he knows it...but maybe a few more drinks and he’ll forget. Maybe he'll find some of John's relentless positivity buried within the darkness roiling at his core. The bartender comes over finally. “Tequila shots. Yeah?”

“Sure. Whatever. Two each.” John’s looking decidedly wanton, the look in his eyes dangerous and raw. "You look gorgeous, you know."

"I know." Sherlock smirks, knowing that people in general do find him gorgeous, and that John in particular finds him even more so than most. Sherlock himself sees bony elbows and scarred veins, strangely wide set eyes, perpetually messy hair, everything about him too long and gangly to be truly beautiful. John thinks he is, though, and that's all that matters.

"That's as modest as you get, isn't it?" John's hands skim down Sherlock's arm, fingers tracing fading track marks and sinewy veins. Even in the pulsing dim light, Sherlock sees the softness illuminating John's eyes. He leans forward and presses his lips achingly gently to the crook of Sherlock's elbow. 

The drinks are slammed in front of them before Sherlock has time to feel awkward about John's boldness. No one has ever kissed over his scabs, his scars, the evidence of what he does to himself. 

They knock back the tequila. John chokes and sputters, and Sherlock realises he's probably never drunk straight tequila in his life. "Are you alright?"

 "Yeah, just...stronger than I'm used to." John wipes his mouth firmly, and Sherlock doesn't question him further.

This time it’s John dragging Sherlock back to the dance floor. Sherlock’s head is swimming pleasantly, the room buzzing a bit, the crush of bodies getting tighter as more and more people fill up the club. It's one heaving thrum. The air smells like sweat and sex, damp clean hair, alcohol and cologne. Sherlock’s sweating like hell, rivulets running down his spine and the sides of his face, lost in the rhythm, head lolling backwards. John’s hands snake inside Sherlock's shirt, fingertips exploring every ridge of bone, sliding in his perspiration. John's palms graze over his nipples, the moan Sherlock makes in response lost in the noise of the club.

He fists John’s shirt in his hands and draws him in, moving relentlessly against him, hips swiveling and grinding, pushing against John in as close a mimic to fucking him as he can. John grinds back, his eyes blazing hard, that perfect pink mouth open and panting. John’s fingers trail up around Sherlock's neck, his whole arm inside Sherlock’s shirt, pulls him down and slithers his hot tongue between Sherlock’s lips. Sherlock gives over completely, forgetting the dancing, anything but John’s tongue against his and John’s hands on his bare skin. Everywhere John touches him burns.

The rest of the night passes the same; shots, dancing, snogging and hands everywhere. By the time they stumble out, the streets are mostly deserted. Sherlock’s giddy, head muzzy with drink. John keeps stopping them to kiss him in the halo of streetlamps, the cold autumn wind whipping around their entwined figures. By the time they’re back at the hostel, Sherlock’s whole body is throbbing with want. They barely make it through the lobby without groping each other against the front desk, falling against the announcement board in the stairwell and licking at each other desperately before tripping up the steps to their room.

Sherlock fumbles with the key to the room, John pressing up against his back, the smell of tequila and oranges sweet on his breath whispering over Sherlock’s skin, which is cool from walking through the autumn night, and still damp and sticky from sweating at the club. John’s hands on Sherlock's hips, more tentative than when they'd been dancing, his fingers dipping down hesitantly under the waist of Sherlock's jeans, thumbing over the crest of his hipbone. The pad of his thumb so soft, just the hint of a nail dragging. Sherlock’s stomach contracts, mouth drops open a little as he struggles to breathe normally.

“I can’t -- stop for just a second. I can’t make the key fit when you’re doing that.” His voice breathy and strained, his head light from alcohol, from John’s heat against him.

John doesn’t stop, instead he grows more bold. A cool hand snakes under Sherlock’s still sweat damp tee shirt, palm flat against his belly and grinds his pelvis slowly against the back of Sherlock’s thigh. He’s hard, oh god, he’s so hard and hot and beautiful, and now his lips are ghosting along Sherlock’s hairline and he can’t stop the shudder that shakes through him. He drops the key on the floor.

John laughs at that, pulls away to bend down and pick it up. “I’ll do it. You’re so distractible.”

“You’re so distracting.” As John moves in front of him to turn the key in the lock, Sherlock runs the top of his nose up John’s ear, from lobe to helix, trailing his tongue behind. John lets out a perfect little mewling gasp just as the door swings open, and Sherlock’s all over him immediately, slamming the door closed harder than he should at this time of night, boxing John against it with his face buried in his neck, teeth bared against his carotid artery. “You are so.fucking.distracting.”

John makes a high needy sound that spirals spectacularly though Sherlock’s body, makes his cock jerk in his pants. It's never been like this, this kind of urgency. He wants everything at once. He braces himself with one hand next to John’s head. John’s face is blushed deep pink, his blue eyes bright and glazed, hair sweaty from dancing and running. Sherlock can _smell_ him. Pheromones. DNA. He can smell his blood pulsing under his glowing skin. “Fuck, god, I want to split you apart.”

"Sherlock...oh god." John's hands on his hips, fingers digging into bone, and it's still not hard enough. Sherlock needs him at a molecular level. He wants them fused, one person.

 _Shut up, Sherlock._ That should never have come out of his mouth. "I'm sorry, that's - I shouldn't have said that. That was a weird thing to say -- you, you didn't like that. Sometimes I say things, and I don't..."

"No, it's good. Very good." John's eyes go black, his voice deepening. “I liked it.”

Oh my god, he is the most gorgeous wondrous amazing remarkable person Sherlock has ever seen. That he's even survived without John Watson up until now is unbelievable.

"Oh, yeah?" Sherlock retracts his head so he can see the expression on John's face. He looks sinfully gorgeous, just a thin ring of blue visible at the edge of vast black pupils, his mouth puffy and smeared pink round the edges from being kissed, his hair sweat mussed and spiky. He's watching Sherlock expectantly. Sherlock leans forward, puts his lips to John's ear, "Well in that case, I do in fact want to split you apart. I want to break you open, see how you work. I want to catalogue every response you have to me touching you. I want to see what that little red mouth looks like stretched around me. I want to know how your come tastes different depending on what you ate that day. I want every molecule of your entire body to be mine and I want every molecule of my body to be yours and I want to be part of each other forever."

John’s mouth goes into an _o_ at that, and his head thumps back against the door. "Oh, Sherlock. Me too. Oh god, I..." One hand comes up, fingers twining frantically in Sherlock’s hair as his hips pump forward against air, against nothing. Sherlock watches, John’s cock tenting the front of his jeans, those muscular hips rutting, looking for the press of Sherlock against him. Sherlock slips an arm slowly between them and palms John hard, watches John’s face go slack, eyes fluttering shut, as he thrusts his cock against Sherlock’s hand.

“You wanted this back at Fire, didn’t you? Wanted me to take you right then. Right on the dance floor.” Sherlock leans into him, runs his nose up John’s throat, breathing him in. He can feel every ridge of John through his jeans. The exact shape of him. His neck muscles contract, shoulders shaking. _Never wanted anyone like this. Never._

“I wanted you yesterday, the minute I saw you, I wanted...oh god, Sherlock...Sherlock…” He’s gasping, pulling at Sherlock’s hair so hard it hurts, his voice gone rough.

Sherlock sucks hard at the smooth dip of muscle between John’s neck and shoulder, pulling his shirt collar back so he can get at the spot he wants more easily. John startles at the intensity of it, the sweet pain of Sherlock drawing his blood up, the prickle of bursting blood vessels; his fingers scrabble in Sherlock’s curls, trainers squeaking across the linoleum floor as he tries to keep standing up.

There’s a thunderstorm brewing outside, the result of weeks of unseasonable heat and moisture, and now the onslaught of suddenly cool autumn air. The thunder rumbles and a flash of white streaks across the window almost simultaneously. The lights flicker. Sherlock gives John a wicked grin, and John returns it, a knowing glint in his eyes. John's so in sync with him, even as different as they are, Sherlock understands for the first time what _other half_ means.

There's always been such an emptiness, such a hollow inside him, an ache. An ache for something intangible, undefinable. Something missing. He always felt like there was something wrong with him. He's tried ignoring it, tried filling it with danger and drugs, with cynicism, with science. Nothing ever helped close this wound inside him that made just living, just the dailies - getting up, going to school, going to parties and talking to people; things that seemed easy for everyone else - so goddamned hard for him.

Now he realises it wasn't a wound, or a hollow. Or something wrong. It was just John's place to occupy, and John wasn't there yet. _John fits._ He fits in his body, in his soul, in places no one’s ever fit before. John’s filled up all the emptiness. The only person, the only anything, that ever has.

"I love you." He doesn't mean to say it, but it's _been_ there, waiting all night to be said. Since they went to the bank that morning. Since John gave him half his sandwich the day before. Since the first time those blue black eyes drew him in.

John's smile is slow and sweet, his eyes heavy lidded, as he tilts his head to the side and draws a fingertip over the pout of Sherlock's lower lip. So quiet Sherlock can barely hear him, "I know. I love you too."

Something about voicing it. Though they'd both known it, something shifts between them, saying it aloud. A promise, more concrete than what they've already said, even though it's three words as meaningless as any others, there's a weight attached to these. They stare at each other a moment, John holding Sherlock in his eyes

"I've never said that to anyone before." Sherlock finally says in a hush.

"Neither have I." John twines his arms around Sherlock's neck and pulls him close. "And I'll never say it to anyone else. Ever again. Just you."

Sherlock's shaking, the profundity of all the things they've said to each other, all that’s still unsaid. It's overwhelming, loving someone this intensely; he's crashing, he's coming apart, he can't process emotion like this, he can't...he forgets to breathe for a second.

Then there are soft lips on his neck, and John's fingers stroking methodically through his hair. "Hey. I've got you. I've got you. It's okay, Sherlock."

“I don’t deserve you.” Sherlock buries his face in John’s strong neck, lets him hold him up, run his fingers over Sherlock’s nape.

“Shhh. Yes you do. Yes you do.” John’s kissing the side of his face, his voice uneven, catching on his words.

Sherlock moves his face into John’s shoulder, presses himself hip to chest against him. He can’t get close enough. Lips over John’s throat, his Adam’s apple bobbing against Sherlock’s kisses as he licks his way up over John’s stubbly jaw, and John turns, catches his mouth, runs his tongue devastatingly lightly along the outside of Sherlock’s lips, makes Sherlock chase his mouth, then pulls his head back with a dangerous smile.

“You gonna tease me?” Sherlock growls, low and rough, beginning to unbutton John’s shirt. He needs to see him, needs to runs his hands and his tongue over every dip and swell of John's body, know how his hip tastes different from his neck.

“Maybe a bit. And you’ll like it.” The thunder cracks like a bomb going off in the room, and John jumps, digging his fingers into Sherlock’s shoulder.

Sherlock laughs, the intensity breaking, nuzzles heavily into the sweet hollow beneath that perfectly square jaw. “Scared of a thunderstorm, John? I’ll keep you safe, poor baby.”

“Fuck off. I’m not scared. You arse. Besides, I thought I was the Daddy...” John swats at Sherlock’s stomach playfully, his eyes black and shining, tilting his head back, letting Sherlock suck and rub and lap at his neck as he shivers.

“God, you’re _beautiful_ , you’re so...are you really mine? Forever, no matter what happens? Mine?" Oh, so he’s definitely still drunk, because he knows he wouldn’t say such a silly thing if he weren’t. Even though it’s true, so true, he feels it in his bones, John is the only person he’s ever needed to possess this way, to be possessed by.

“Sherlock, yes, fuck, why are you even asking? I’m yours, I’m yours. I love you.” John’s fiddling at the hem of Sherlock’s tee shirt, pushing it up, and the touch of his fingers against Sherlock’s bare stomach is electrifying, shock waves shimmering through his every nerve ending. He can almost _see_ them, see the colours of John touching him; red and burnt orange and honey yellow dripping heat all over his body.

Sherlock stumbles them over to the bed, John clinging to his shoulders, and they fall in a tangle onto the bottom bunk, crisp white sheets still made up army tight under them. Sherlock’s pulling at the buttons on John’s shirt, John whinging, sweat beading in his upper lip even in the cool room, trying to tug Sherlock’s tee shirt over his head, kissing sloppily on the sides of their mouths, the heat between them rising until Sherlock can’t breathe, he can't _breathe_ , he’s so desperate to be inside, to feel the perfect tightness of John’s body around him, to see John open to him. To watch that beautiful face as John falls apart underneath him.

Sherlock finally gets all John’s buttons undone, spreads his shirt with flattened hands. Pearly pink nipples, not round, but oval. Sherlock teases a fingertip over one, hardening under his touch, John’s head rolling on his neck, sighing. Satisfying. _Beautiful_ , Sherlock whispers, and John whispers back _so are you_.

Downy blonde hair over his sternum, barely anywhere else. Tight hard stomach, but no six pack, no evidence of more working out than just running round a rugby pitch. His navel a perfect nubby whorl. Sherlock licks into it, and John arches sharply off the bed, moans deep. Sherlock grins wolfishly against his belly, rubs his mouth and nose zigzag across John’s skin, down to the edge of his jeans, grabs the waistband with his teeth.

“Oh, fuck, Jesus Christ, Sherlock,” John can’t stop moving, twisting and pushing against Sherlock’s every touch. So eager. He parts his legs automatically, letting Sherlock rub up the inside of his thighs, up into the crease of his groin. Sherlock lays his cheek against John’s bare stomach, watching with wondering eyes his hand moving slowly up the seam of John’s tight denim shorts. He’s mesmerised by this, by them together. By what they can do to each other with a look, with a touch. No one’s ever made him feel both so vulnerable and so safe at the same time.

Sherlock scoops a hand under John’s arse, strokes a line down the seam of his jeans, and John cries out, even with the fabric between Sherlock’s fingers and his his skin. A hard dark thrill crackles through Sherlock at the sound, but it’s too loud, they’re going to get a very unwelcome knock on the door. “Shhhhh...so sensitive, aren’t you, my god.”

“Ss-sorry…” John’s lost control of his voice, stuttering and shaking. A deep red flush is creeping up his chest, has already bloomed on his neck and face. “It just feels so good, you touching me.”  

"John. You've done this before, haven't you?" Sherlock looks up the plane of John's chest at him, his indigo eyes particularly entrancing, black streaked and dark. He sucks his lower lip into his mouth and bites it. Shakes his head.

"No, not, not what I _want_ to do. Not what I want _you_ to do, I haven't." He looks bashful, those thick blonde lashes half covering his irises, colour on his cheeks, holding his lip in his teeth. "Is that okay?"

Oh god. He couldn't _get_ more endearing. Sherlock wants to wrap his entire body around him, shield him, kiss every single pore on his face, never let the ugliness of the world wear down the wonderful goodness that is John Watson. Sherlock’s whole chest feels like it’s cracking open, everything soft and good that was left in him being exposed, John drawing it out of him. “Yes, it’s okay. We’ll just go slow, and you tell me if you want to stop.”

"I won’t, I won’t want to.” John shakes his head fiercely.

“Well, just tell me if you do.” With a crack so loud it sounds as if the roof is caving in, lightning flashes in the window and the rain begins, hard and driving, beating against the window. Sherlock turns to look at it, thinking of how the rain always comes in rivers down the steps into St Mark’s, no matter how well he blocks the entrance, soaking his sleeping bag, leaving him curled in a ball like a wet bedraggled cat.

Tonight he’s in a clean dry bed, belly full of shots and real food, and perfect wonderful elfin nosed blonde haired angelic John Watson breathing hard underneath him. He’s not even high. He doesn't even want to be or need to be. John is his storm, his drug, everything.

He swings his head back to look at John, who’s watching him with undisguised affection, his hands folded above his head. Sherlock swoops down and kisses his belly, John sighs, lets one hand drop to the top of Sherlock’s head. Darts his tongue out to lap at the soft skin over his ribs, and John rolls beneath him, fingers tightening in Sherlock’s hair. Closes his mouth around one perfect nipple and sucks, the skin rising into his mouth, responding to his touch. He flicks the very tip of his tongue across the little nub, and John arches into his lips, but remembers not to be too loud, muffles his cry with the back of his other hand.

“Take off your shirt. And your shorts. I’ll be right back.” He’s so heavy and drunk with desire, he can barely slip off the bunk and cross the tiny room to fish a condom and some lube out of his bag. He drops his own jeans to the floor, tosses them over a chair, and turns back around.

“God, your voice, Sherlock, fuck. It's gorgeous.” John murmurs, arching his hips up to slide his shorts down his legs. He kicks them off, and then he’s just laying there in his pants, thin blue cotton, the outline of him hard and swollen inside them, his thighs athletic, the muscles defined and thick. His calves perfectly shaped, thin little ankles, almost delicate. Sherlock hadn’t noticed those before. Sherlock’s staring at him, and John looks down at himself self-consciously. “What?”

Sherlock crawls back on top of him, straddles one thigh and rocks himself down against it, a sharp shudder of arousal wracking him as he falls forward and their mouths meet again. “You,” he husks out against John’s lips, “Just you."

John’s hands smooth down over his back, and Sherlock closes his eyes, tries to drink in every sensation, The soft pads of John’s fingers over his scapula, down his vertebra, John’s belly rising and falling under his own, John’s thigh flexing against his cock, John’s breathing rapid and shallow against his temple. This is the only time it will be the first time, and he wants to remember every single detail.

John’s shaking, his whole body quivering. Sherlock presses his closed lips to John’s, whisperingly soft, and John sighs, pushes his fingers through Sherlock’s hair and grips his head between his hands. Sherlock kisses him again, just slightly harder, pulls John’s lower lip between his own and sucks tenderly. He leans back, runs his fingers over John’s brow and down the side of his face, John’s eyes fixed on him.

“Sherlock.” John’s voice hushed, brimming with emotion.

“John.” Sherlock can’t find words for all the things he wants to say. _I love you_ came out easily, but there’s so much more. So many things he needs John to know. He’s never been good with emotion, with _sentiment_.

John brushes his knuckles over the prominent ridge of Sherlock’s cheekbone, down to his mouth, and puts two fingers over his lips. “Shhhh. I know. I know. Just -- come here.”

John pulls his face down, covering Sherlock’s mouth with his own, and Sherlock brings the hand that isn’t bracing him against the mattress up to cradle John’s face as they kiss. Sherlock thumbs under John’s closed eyes, memorising the downy softness of his eyelashes. John’s fingers close around his wrist, pulling his hand away and laying it over his erection inside his pants and pushing up into his touch.

“Please.” He murmurs against Sherlock’s open mouth, tongue still lapping at the inside of John’s lips. “Please, Sherlock.”

“Take these off.” Sherlock pushes at the waistband of John’s pants, and John raises his hips obligingly so Sherlock can pull them down.

Sherlock eases the navy blue cotton down over John’s legs, watching his cock spring free, thick and flushed, glans shining wet. Sherlock whispers _beautiful_ , and trails one finger down the side. John moans deeply, looking up at Sherlock with wide eyes. He reminds Sherlock of the boy in the alley, before he had a name, angelic and perfect. Those big blue eyes so trusting, so hungry.

Sherlock slithers down, nuzzling his way down John's torso, sliding his hands down over his ribs and belly, nudges his nose into the soft blonde curls trailing down from John’s navel, breathing in the smell of him. He darts his tongue out, tasting salt and musk, and John shivers violently.

"Has anyone ever done this for you before, John?" He has to know, know if he's John first everything. Wants to be John's first everything.

John's cheeks flush deeper, he grins shyly. "You're the first bloke. That counts."

"That counts." Not as satisfying as the first ever, but still good. He runs his fingers down over John's bollocks, soft skin, soft hair, and tugs a little as he rocks up on his knees to get a better angle. John's response is breathtaking, tilting his hips toward Sherlock's hand, grabbing into his hair with shaking fingers, a long low moan quivering through him as his mouth falls open. His thighs are trembling, the lean muscles twitching already.

Sherlock rubs his cheek against the side of John's cock, velvet smooth heat and wet at the slit. Sherlock will have to wear a condom; he's a junkie, he's had sex with god knows how many people, he'll have to be tested for months before they know if it's safe or not, he knows that. But John doesn't. John he can taste, he can lick his bare skin, taste his come on his tongue. Just the thought of that twists hot and delicious down through Sherlock's belly, and his hips twitch forward automatically, dragging the tip of his cock against John's leg.

"Come in my mouth, John." Sherlock flicks his tongue into the slit, precome bitter and lovely. John jerks, thumps his head back into the pillow, grabs Sherlock's hair hard enough that he can't stop the grunt as his head is dragged back.

"Sorry, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to...No one's ever -- no one's ever let me do that before. I just..." John fades out as Sherlock's lips close over the head of his cock, tongue pressing into his frenulum. "Oh fuck, Sherlock, fuck oh god."

Sherlock hasn't done this voluntarily in over a year. It's been all blocking it out, trying not to remember, feeling guilty and disgusting if he was turned on by it, as if his body was betraying him. The last time was three nights ago, and now he thinks maybe that really was the very last time. That the only person who'll ever have him this way again is laying underneath him right now. That he'll get clean, go home, have a life. All because of John. John's given him so much, without asking a thing in return.

Now he can give John this, show him how beautiful he is, how treasured. The crushing intimacy of it, the trust. He pushes himself up on his hands so he can swallow John down to the hilt, his glans rubbing into his throat. He chokes a little, but doesn't pull off, the weight and heat of John in his mouth so incredible that he never wants to stop. Cups his tongue around the underside, lapping at the vein as he draws his mouth up to the leaking slit and dips into it with the point of his tongue, and then takes him deep again.

John's beginning to thrash, biting into the heel of his hand to muffle his moans. Whimpering and pulling the sheets off the mattress. Sherlock swirls his tongue around the head, sucks gently in waves of varying pressure. John's hips pump upward, thrusting into Sherlock's mouth, his belly heaving, the flush of his arousal deep red against his golden skin.

"God, I want you..." Sherlock pulls off, curls his hands around John's hips, licks him up and down, foreskin dragging across his tongue. "I could do this all night. Seeing you like this, Jesus Christ, John. You're a fucking miracle."

John chokes out a little sob that hits Sherlock hard, somewhere in the middle of his chest. John's eyes tight shut, one hand in his mouth, one fisted in the sheets next to his head, he looks on the verge of tears. His hand lands heavy on Sherlock’s head, smoothing over his hair, fingertips brushing the top of his ear. He can barely speak, whispers in a low husky voice, “ _You’re_ the miracle. I love you, god I love you.”

The storm outside is getting heavier, the rain lashing hard against the window, hammering deafeningly loudly. The lights flicker again.

“Please, please, baby, I want, can I…” Sherlock’s never called anyone baby in his life, but it feels right, it just slips out, and John smiles slowly and crookedly as Sherlock runs his finger lightly over the crease of John's arse.

"Yeah, yeah, you can, I _want_ you to." John lets his legs open farther, the outsides of his thighs flat against the mattress.

Sherlock crawls his hand up to John's mouth and pushes two fingers in between his warm lips. "Suck."

John takes them in with his eyes fixed intently on Sherlock's, brings his tongue up and over them, licking round his knuckles and in between, and sucks hard, little breathy moans escaping him. His eyelids flutter shut, long lashes resting on his cheeks.

"Oh Jesus, John, do you even know how hot that is?" The pressure of John's hot wet mouth around his fingers is overwhelming; he needs something, anything. John hasn't even touched him yet. His cock is throbbing with need. He rocks against John's leg and nearly comes right then, a tingling shudder overtaking him, the feeling of John's body against his aching flesh nearly too much.

John hums around his fingers and bends his leg, rubs his shin against the Sherlock, the underside of his balls, pressing the hard bone into his perineum. Electricity surges through Sherlock, arse muscles clenching, his shoulders rolling forward. Exhales a long breath, pulls his saliva soaked fingers out of John's mouth. "Christ, John. You're...I've never...it's never been like this."

John caresses the side of his face, crooks one leg to the side. “That’s because it’s never been us.”

“You...you don’t talk like an eighteen year old sometimes, John.” Sherlock murmurs wonderingly, kissing the hollow above John’s hip.

“I don’t feel like an eighteen year old sometimes, Sherlock.” John’s fingers twist into his hair again, thumb rubbing idly over his eyebrow.

Sherlock’s fingers are drying. Without another moment of hesitation, he takes John into his mouth and slips his index finger around to rub at his entrance. John curls off the bed immediately with a loud shuddering exhalation, whimpers _Sherlock, Sherlock_. Sherlock puts a hand on his hip to hold him down. He pushes a finger tip in, past the furled tension of John’s muscle, and John groans deep, shivering and shaking, clenching around Sherlock's finger. His cock thickens against Sherlock's tongue. He’s going to come.

Sherlock pushes his finger in all the way up to the knuckle and John’s coming, hot sweet salty thick pulsing all over Sherlock's tongue and soft palate, his hips stuttering trying to arc up, but Sherlock holds him down, crooks his finger inside to brush over the little bundle of nerves. John sobs out a harsh groan, tightening around Sherlock’s finger inside him. He’s still coming, and Sherlock’s swallowing him down, every bit. _John inside me, John a part of me._ Fusing. One person.

Sherlock finally pulls off, licking at John with a flat tongue until he quivers and pushes at Sherlock’s head. Too much. Over sensitive. He presses a kiss to his softening cock, to the swell of his perfect hipbone, to his belly, and slides up to kiss his lips. John isn’t hesitant at all, sucks Sherlock’s lower lip into his mouth, swirling his tongue around Sherlock’s, licking at him hungrily. He breathes out, "I’ve never tasted myself in anyone’s mouth.”

“I’ll let you every day.” Sherlock murmurs, meaning it so fiercely, with every bit of himself that he can give.

Sherlock leaves his finger inside of John, feeling each of his muscles slackening around him in the aftermath of orgasm. He can feel every little aftershock, every twitch. He touches his middle finger to the outside of his hole, questioning. John doesn’t pull away. Sherlock pushes the second fingertip in, John’s body opening to him more easily now. His legs fall open farther and he hums against Sherlock’s lips as the second finger sinks in deep.

“Okay?” Sherlock pulls back from the kiss to watch him, to watch his fingers sliding in and out of him, to watch his face contort and then relax with every stroke.

“Yeah.” John’s breathless, his face mottled red and pink, lips swollen like ripe cherries.

Sherlock strokes him, widening his fingers into a V, almost pulling all the way out and then slipping back in up to the knuckle. Within minutes, John's half hard again, his cock jerking and swelling against his belly. John reaches down between them, closes his hand around Sherlock's cock and pulls gently. Sherlock immediately loses his rhythm, head falling forward into John's collarbone, awash in endorphins, his whole body reeling.

"Oh John, oh my god." He knows he should be putting the condom on, but the feeling of John's hand against his naked flesh is mindbendingly good. He rocks forward into John's grasp, desperate for more.

"Sherlock. Sherlock." John pants, pumping him faster.

"You can't, I can't...it's not fair to you...I have to..." As much as it's the last thing he wants to do, he pushes John's hand off of him. "I need..."

John holds up the condom, a mischievous glint in his eye. "Looking for this?"

"It's just. You know." A flood of shame washes through him, but John catches his face and hold it, kisses him hard.

"Don't you dare. I'm not ashamed of you, so you're not allowed to be either. You hear me?" John kisses him again, then his chin and his eyes, his forehead.

"You're absolutely incredible." Sherlock is momentarily frozen, blinking at the ferocity on John's face. No one has ever spoken to him like this, loved him like this. Everything at home was unspoken, reserved. Nothing fierce and wild and real like this. Jim was only passionate in his cruelty, everything else bored him.

"I'm really not." John runs one hand into Sherlock's hair, and with the other strokes his fingers down Sherlock's chest, runs them over his flagging erection and down the inside of his thigh. "Now weren't we in the middle of something?"

Sherlock can't stop the grin that lights across his face, the shiver from John's hands on him. "You're awfully seductive for a virgin, you know that?"

John laughs, bites his lip in that way that Sherlock knows is _never_ going to stop making him crazy, and waves the condom in Sherlock's face again. "Not a virgin for much longer."

A growl builds in his belly, arousal coming back full force at the look on John's face, and he grabs the condom from him and rips it open, kneels up as much as he can with the bunk above him, and rolls it on, drips lube hastily over himself and his fingers, smooths it over John.

"Roll to your side...it'll be...easier on you that way." Sherlock's not even sure he'll fit this first time, and hurting John is unthinkable.

"Okay." John smiles obligingly and rolls, wiggling his arse up against Sherlock as his runs his hand down his side and over his thigh.

Sherlock tucks himself flush against John's back, so much taller that John fits entirely within the contours of Sherlock's frame. John tilts his head back for a kiss, deep and wet, Sherlock licking across his cheek as his pulls back. "Ready?"

"Yeah."

John's arse is aesthetically perfect. Round and taut, a definitive line from buttock to thigh, a curve of muscle defined at his hip.

"Stop admiring my arse and get on with it, Sherlock. You're killing the mood here."

Sherlock muffles his laugh by pressing his face to John's shoulder as he takes himself in hand and parts John's legs with his knee. He pushes John's right cheek up with two fingers, presses into him just slightly. John arches and whimpers, the muscles in his back rippling, reaches back to wrap his hand around Sherlock's head.

“Okay?” Sherlock pauses, shaking with anticipation, with need.

“Yeah, good. Don’t stop.” John’s voice breaking, breathless.

Sherlock presses forward, his forehead resting on John’s shoulder, watching himself slowly pushing into John, his breath hitching. It’s tight, so tight, and John’s clawing at his scalp now. He's trembling, his body fighting the intrusion. Sherlock kisses his neck slowly and rocks his hips just fractionally. _It's okay, baby, it's okay._ John breathes deep. Finally he breaches past the tightness into the heat and slick of John’s body, and they gasp together as Sherlock’s hips roll up to meet John’s arse.

“Christ, you’re inside me…that’s gorgeous.” John moves his hand from Sherlock’s head to his hip, digs his fingers in. “I’ve got you.”

“Oh John.” There’s a tide of emotion rising in him. He kisses John’s neck, his spine, his shoulder, his hair. Any part of him he can reach with his mouth. Thrusts his hips forward, the intensity of this making him feel faint. All the blood rushes from his brain, sweeping hot through his veins.

John keeps murmuring _I’ve got you, I’ve got you_ as Sherlock finds his rhythm, gentle and steady. He slips an arm over John’s belly, finds him hard again as his knuckles brush his erection. John shivers and bites back a cry. Oh god, he’s fucking miraculous. Sherlock’s on the edge of tears at the perfection of this, the love passing between them. Sherlock takes John’s hand off his own hip, guides him to take ahold of himself.

“Go ahead. I want to feel you come while I’m inside you.” Just the thought of it nearly pushes him over the edge, a delicious tingle crawling up his belly and down his thighs.

“Oh god, Sherlock, oh god…” John’s arm moves up and back as he touches himself, his body curls inward, shaking.

“That’s it, that’s it…come on, baby.” Sherlock kisses John’s back, flattens his hand against his belly and pulls him close, thrusting harder now, “Fuck, I’m so close.”

John’s muscles spasm around him, sending a shock of electricity right through his central nervous system. John starts trembling, throws his head back, and Sherlock clamps his mouth down on his exposed neck, sucking his already bruised skin up between his teeth. John mumbling, _Oh, fuck, Sherlock, oh fuck_ , jerks once, twice, goes still and stiff, lets out a soft sob, and then there’s a sticky hand gripping Sherlock’s hip.

“Come on Sherlock, shit, come on,” John grinds out through clenched teeth, his nails slicing into Sherlock’s skin.

He lets it overtake him, the most intense orgasm he’s ever had, head going so light he almost feels nauseous, every limb quivering violently, white hot flames licking through his body, stomach muscles contracting so hard it hurts. John’s hand sliding up and down his thigh, twisting his head back to kiss his temple. His vision goes white for he’s not sure how long, his open mouth resting against John’s skin, hips still rocking shallowly against John’s arse until the shockwaves have finished coursing through him.

Body leaden and head thick, he eases himself out of John, rolls the condom off and ties it, tosses it across the room and misses the bin. Curls back up against the comforting plane of John’s back and rubs his face against his hair. John pulls his arm over his stomach and plays with his fingers. Brings them up to his mouth and kisses them.

Sherlock can’t move. The flood of dopamine is making him feel drunk all over again. He lets John kiss his hand, wriggle back into him, twine their legs together. He remembers he wants to smell John’s skin after they have sex, rubs his nose against his neck where there are two blooming purple red bruises in the shape of Sherlock’s mouth.

“That was amazing.” John says thickly, now lazily kneading Sherlock’s palm with his fingers.

“Good. I would be forever ashamed if your first time was unsatisfactory.” Sherlock can’t think, he’s barely conscious. He’s also freezing suddenly, and John must realise it, because he wiggles loose of Sherlock’s embrace and pulls the sheets up over Sherlock, then settles back in his arms, facing him. His cheeks are wet.

“Are you alright?” Slightly alarmed, wondering if he hurt him, if he’s upset, wishes they’d waited. A thousand anxieties rise up in Sherlock’s throat at the sight of tears on John’s face.

“Perfect. I’m perfect.”

Sherlock thumbs at the wetness wonderingly. “But…”

“Sometimes people cry when they’re happy, Sherlock.” John nudges his cheek into Sherlock’s hand, smiling. “And I have never, ever been this happy.”

Sherlock sighs, confused, but then John’s lips are against his collarbone, his chin, his mouth. John’s hand gently brushing his fringe away from his eyes. John whispering softly, _I love you Sherlock. It’s fine. Go to sleep._

And he does. Sated, warm, and content, he lets himself fall asleep against the sturdy presence of John Watson breathing against him.

***

He wakes up to the steady drip of rain against the window, the room lit grey and pale. John’s golden hair is all he can see when his eyes open, John’s head tipped down into Sherlock’s chest, breathing even and slow. He must have gotten up in the night and gotten a shower, gotten dressed. His hair smells like shampoo, and he’s back in the maroon button down and the dark denim shorts they bought at H&M yesterday.

Sherlock wants to watch him sleep all morning, but his own body feels sticky and grimy, his eyelids gritty. _Amazing how easily one gets used to being clean, and how long it takes to get used to being filthy._ He hates to think of what they’ll go back to when the money runs out for the hostel. Sleeping huddled together on the never washed sleeping bag, the rain pouring down the steps. Reality washes over him like a bucket of ice cold water.

They have no way to make money, except what Sherlock was doing before, and now...He couldn’t. Couldn’t do that to John. So no income, no addresses, they’ll never be able to stay here. Drugs seem less important than they did two days ago, but...food, and fun, and all what they did yesterday requires money. Two thousand quid sounds like so much, but it will go faster than they can even imagine.

He’s going to cry. He can feel it, the lump forming in his throat. He scrambles off the bed and yanks a towel off the shelf, opens the door quietly so as not to wake John and flees down the hall to the loo where he can cry alone, muffled by the sounds of running water and other people talking and brushing their teeth.

When Sherlock returns, clean and dressed and cried out, John’s awake, sitting on the edge of the bed.

“You look like you’re about to leap out of your skin, John. Are you alright?” Sherlock flops beside him and John immediately leans over and presses his lips to Sherlock’s.

“Better now.” He smiles, but it’s still tinged with worry. “I need to go check on the money. I feel...uneasy. Also, we need to get enough out to reserve this room for next week.”

“John. We can’t...we can’t stay here indefinitely.” Sherlock hates bringing it up, watching John’s face crumple, his brow furrow down. But it has to be said. “Yesterday was wonderful, an incredible dream...but. You can’t possibly go home, and I don’t think I would be welcomed back with open arms, either. And we have no way to make money, except…”

John puts his hand over Sherlock’s mouth. “Don’t even say it. Look. We’ll sort this out, okay. One day at a time. But if we’re going to get jobs or anything, we need to be clean, right? I mean, that’s like pretty much the first thing anyone looks at. We have to be clean and in nice clothes, yeah? This place is only £15 a day, Sherlock, and we can shower, we can wash our clothes. There's free food, a way to make sure we eat every day. It’s a waystation, right? A place to sort our shit out.”

Sherlock looks at his feet. John has a point. A good point. “Yeah, I guess.”

“And we can have fun at night...we don’t have to spend any money to have fun.” Teasing sneaks back into John’s tone as his hand sneaks onto Sherlock’s thigh. Sherlock looks up at him and he’s grinning, blue eyes twinkling in the early morning light shimmering in the high window.

“That’s true.”

“You’re not going to get high anymore.” It’s not a question.

“Well, I can’t just…” Sherlock looks at him pleadingly, but there’s no softness in John’s face right now. His jaw set in a hard line. “Do you have any idea how fucking hard it would be for me to quit shooting up cold turkey? I've been...for over a year now. I could...I could go into shock, John.”

John’s mouth ripples, like it did yesterday when he was talking about his sister on Tower Bridge. “Alright. We’ll...we’ll talk about that later. Right now, let’s go get our free breakfast and then check on the money, yeah?”

“Alright.”

John stands up and holds his hand out to Sherlock. "Come on then."

***

Forty minutes later, stuffed full of toast and beans, sliced tomatoes, rashers, sausage, and as much as coffee as they could drink, they set off rather soberly for St Mark’s. Nothing’s been solved by a night of dancing and sex and love confessions. They’re still broke and homeless and alone. Sherlock wraps his arms around his chest. It’s still drizzling, the weather turned autumn chill, and they’re both dressed for August. He shivers.

John touches his arm, “Hey. Hey, don’t be so sulky. Sherlock, we’re together. It’ll be okay.”

“How can you be so relentlessly positive?! I’ve been out here for _fifteen months_ , John. Fifteen months of this shit, this misery. How can you possibly know we’ll be alright? Stop saying that. It’s absurd.” Sherlock’s irrationally annoyed with John’s platitudes suddenly. With his assurances that everything will be fine. It doesn’t _mean_ anything.

John recoils as if Sherlock slapped him. “Well, fuck you too. Is this how you treat everyone who’s offered you their money and their love and their body? Fuck you, Sherlock. Seriously.”

They walk in silence, John stalking ahead. _You fuck everything up. No one can stand you for long._  Not John. God, he couldn’t bear for John to leave.

He hurries to catch up with him, falls in stride. John won’t look at him, eyes resolutely fixed ahead. “I’m sorry.”

John’s head twitches microscopically, he sucks his teeth, nose flaring.

“I’m really, really sorry, John. I shouldn’t have said that.” _Please look at me, John, please._

John stops walking so abruptly that Sherlock keeps moving for a few steps before he realises John’s not beside him anymore. He turns, John watching him, his eyes dazzlingly blue against the grey sky, the shoulders of his shirt speckled with rain.

“No. No. It’s alright. I can’t expect you to be positive all the time, too. One of us has to be the cynical disbelieving git. Keeps us grounded.” John smiles, and it reaches up into his eyes, creasing across his forehead. “Just. Promise me that we’re really in this together. Whatever happens.”

“I promise.” Sherlock brushes a thumb over John’s cheek and John tilts his head up. Sherlock kisses him slow and deep, running his tongue all along the edges of John’s, nibbling at his bottom lip. John wraps his arms around Sherlock’s waist, head against his chest. “I love you.”

“Never stop saying that.” John leans back, runs his hands over Sherlock’s back, and steps away. “Now that’s our first fight out of the way, let’s go check on our money.”

John slips his hand into Sherlock’s, fingers entwined, and it’s a comfortable silence on the way across Tower Bridge, swinging their arms and ignoring the steady drizzle wetting their hair. They make their way down to the abandoned tube station, and Sherlock throws back the canvases.

John frowns, his mouth twisting to the side. "I was sure I put the wood across that last night."

"I don't remember. I was..." Sherlock pauses, half crouched over the stairwell. He peers down into the half daylit station, can see the edge of his sleeping bag. "I dunno, it looks okay. No one's ever messed with me here, John, honestly."

"Yeah, alright." John's still looking at the wood planks set off to the side of the stairwell dubiously, but he follows when Sherlock beckons him down the steps.

The station's dim. Sherlock brought the torches, reaches into his pocket and hands John one. As they flick them on, Sherlock catches movement in his peripheral vision about fifteen feet in front of him, dread immediately pooling in his belly.

"Oh fuck." John's already spotted it, he's backing up.

Sherlock reaches for him, grabs air, hears John _oof_ beside him as he backs into something solid. Sherlock turns, everything happening in slow motion, his ability to process this not quite having caught up with the visual. There's two thick arms wrapped around John's chest. He's dropped his torch on the floor.

"Get the fuck off me, get off!" John's thrashing, kicking, stamping on the toes of the huge goon holding him fast.

Sherlock claws at one of the arms squeezing into John, but gets dragged back himself, huge ham hock arms across his own chest, sour garlicky breath hot on the side of his face.

The movement in front of him solidifies into a person shape, as Jim slinks his way out of the darkness, wrinkling his nose and wiping his mouth delicately with his index finger.

"Nice place you've got here, Sherlock."

"How did you...?" Sherlock chokes out, half the air being compressed out of his lungs.

"You didn't honestly think you were being _clever_ , did you? That I haven't known where you were all these months? Come now, pet. I thought you knew me better than that. Tsk, tsk, tsk," Jim shakes his head exaggeratedly.

 _Oh god, the money._ Sherlock forces himself not to look toward the trackway. Maybe they haven't found it.

Jim advances on John, his head tilting to the side like a curious lizard. Runs his fingertip down the swoop of John's nose. John tries to wrench his head away, but there's no where for him to go. Horror is racing through Sherlock, his stomach churning.

There is no way for this to end well.

"He _is_ a little cutie, I'll give you that." Jim looks John up and down laviciously, slides his tongue slowly over his bottom lip. "But you didn't think you could bring him into _my house_ and parade him in front of me, let him talk to me like that, and I would just _allow it_?"

"No. No, I'm sorry. Look, I'll, I'll do whatever you want, Jim. I'll come back. You want me back, I'll..." _Anything. I'll do anything, please don't hurt John, please, oh god._

Jim laughs derisively, sticks his tongue crudely in his cheek. "You think a few blow jobs are going to fix this, Sherlock? Huh? You've always thought you were smarter than me, because you went to public school and have a fucking house in the country and I was just some little chav with a big dick and some heroin for cheap, yeah?"

"No, I never thought that." Sherlock shakes his head violently, unable to think clearly, to formulate a plan. Terror is flooding through him, his only goal to get John safe somehow, get John out of there.

“Yeah, well. I think you need to be taught a lesson.” Jim drifts over to Sherlock and grabs his chin hard, leans in and licks a stripe up the side of his face.

“Oi! Leave him be!” John’s red faced, wriggling wildly, trying to get free. But he’s two heads shorter and about half the weight of Jim’s lackey, and there’s just no way. The goon just stands there, silent and stone faced, like he’s holding a small child.

“Your boyfriend’s...protective. It’s _cute_.” Jim enunciates every word, watches Sherlock with an open mouth for a long second. Takes a deep breath and scratches his head, turns away. “You know, Sherlock, I might have left you alone, let you move on with the golden boy over here...but you just had to rub it in my face. I can’t have that. You had to know I couldn’t have that.”

“Jim, whatever you want, I’ll do it.” He’s never felt so desperate. He knows what Jim is capable of, knows how he toys with people.  

“Sherlock, stop _saying_ that!” John shouts, his face flaming red now. “Fuck you, Jim. Just fuck off. Sherlock doesn’t belong to you and neither do I.”

Jim snorts, laughs. “You believe this? He doesn’t know me very well, does he, Sherlock?”

“No.” Sherlock whispers, looking over at John and begging him silently to stop. No good can come of provoking him.

Jim’s mood turns on a dime, as it so often does. A vicious sneer crosses his face as his looks from John to Sherlock. “I _was_ going to just kill you both, but somehow, plan number two now seems more appropriate. See ya round, Sherlock.” He starts to walk up the steps, in between them, and waves his hand dismissively. “You know what to do.”

Sherlock’s watching Jim, doesn’t see immediately the flash of silver in the darkness. By the time he does, John’s already doubled over. The goon pushes him to the floor, he lands with a dead thump, his head skidding limply. Sherlock’s allowed to struggle free, rush to John’s side. There’s a pool of dark blood spreading across the tile. John’s face is ghostly white. The goons disappear up the steps behind Jim, neither having uttered a word the whole time they were there.

“Oh god oh god. Oh god, John. John can you hear me? Fuck. FUCK.” He’s crying, can feel the tears dripping off his chin onto his bent knees. “Please don’t die, oh my god.”  

“Your...belt.” John struggles out, clutching his hands to his stomach.

“What? What?” Sherlock bends over, panicked beyond the capacity to be rational. He’s shaking from head to foot.

“The belt...in your bag. It’ll...slow down the blood loss…” John’s lips are going blue.

Sherlock scrambles across the floor, his trainers slipping in blood, throws the milk crate and rips the belt from under the blanket, crawls frantically back to John.

“On my back. Turn me on my back.” John’s voice is so faint. Sherlock can’t get a breath.

“Okay.” Sherlock gingerly eases him onto his back and gets the belt under him, cinches it tight around where John’s hands are pressing, black red with blood. “I’m going to go call 999, okay. I’ll be right back. I’ll be right back.”

John nods, apparently too weak to speak anymore, and Sherlock goes skidding up the steps, covered in John’s blood, sobbing for help. There’s tourists everywhere. Everyone has phones out, taking pictures of Tower Bridge, laughing. Sherlock freezes for a second, and before he can scream, get someone's attention, an elderly woman turns and sees him, her eyes going wide with shock and fear.

“Oh, sweetheart. Are you bleeding? What happened?” She rushes toward him, and he clutches her forearms, grateful for someone to hold on to.

“Please. Call 999. My boyfriend, he’s, he got stabbed, he’s down there. Please. Please.” He’s sobbing, wailing, John’s down there all alone.

“Alright, sweetheart. Just calm down.” She pulls a flip phone out of her purse. “I’ll call. You go back and see how he’s doing, alright?”

He nods, flies back down the steps, slips on his bloody shoes and falls halfway down, cracking his back hard and knocking his head against the railing. It's nothing. He doesn't even notice. Crawls across the floor to kneel beside John. John is deathly pale, his chest fluttering shallowly, everything is blood, blood everywhere. Sherlock gathers his head onto his folded knees and kisses his forehead.

“They’re coming, okay? You fucking hold on. You hear me, John? Goddammit. Don’t you _dare_ leave me. I just found you. _I just found you_.” He rocks back and forth, murmuring it over and over again, doesn’t even feel the elderly woman’s hand on his shoulder as the sirens wail in the distance.

**  
  
  
**


	4. Chapter 4

Sherlock falls back against the damp tile wall, crouched in a ball, his knees drawn up to his chest in the darkness. He can’t stop shaking. The paramedics are bent over John with bandages and gloves, an IV bag. Everyone’s moving both incredibly fast and far too slow. Sherlock wants to shout at them, order them to hurry up, get John to the hospital. _Save him, please save him, he’s so good. And he's everything to me, and I'll die if he dies. Don't let him die._

He can’t shout though. He can’t even open his mouth.

He skids down the wall, braces himself by putting his hand on the floor and it lands on his scattered needles and bags. He stares at it, his hand on a syringe, the black bag with the vial from Jim’s last night still in it. He could. Could just disappear down the trackway for a moment... _I need it. I can’t calm down. It’ll just be enough to calm down._ Heart hammering out of his chest, choking. He’s choking on his own breath, panic welling up in his throat. No one will even notice if he just... _You won’t get high anymore_. John’s voice reverberates in him, pleading and insistent. Those enormous eyes silently begging him to assent.

John John John. Beautiful perfect generous kind John bleeding out on the floor and he’s thinking about getting high. _You are a worthless junkie, that’s all you’ll ever be. You don’t deserve him._

Suddenly there’s a face swarming in front of him, a hand shaking his knee. The old woman. She’s still here.

“Up you get. Come on. We’re going to ride with him to hospital. That’s it.” Her grip is surprisingly firm around his bony elbow as she kicks the drugs and the syringes under the blanket with a severe look at Sherlock. She’s the only person who’s realised, realised that he lives here. She guides him up the steps behind the two paramedics bearing John on a stretcher. Sherlock can’t look at him. _This is all your fault, you disastrous little shit. If he’d never met you…_

He’s freezing cold. He can’t think. He watches, numb, as they load John into the back of the ambulance. A gloved hand lowers down to help him in. “Well, come on, then.”

The old woman is already in the ambulance. “My grandson’s in a bit of a bad way, you know. Come on then, _Billy_ , get in.”

“What?” Sherlock spins his head round at her. She winks at him conspiratorially, and raises her eyebrows. Oh. “Yeah, Nan, sorry.”

He plants a bloody trainer slipping on the metal step and gets heaved up into the back. The paramedic reaches over him and slams the heavy doors shut, and then they’re jolted forward as the sirens wail and the ambulance takes off winding through the city streets. Careening down London Wall, cars pulling to the side as they fly past. He looks down at his hands, John’s blood drying, caked under his fingernails, in the creases of his knuckles. Closes his eyes, biting back vomit rising in his throat, presses the heels of his hands into his eye sockets. He absolutely cannot look at John, at the black bloodstain soaking his brand new shirt, at his eggshell pale face, at those beautiful eyelashes lying so deathly still.

“Billy!”

He snaps his head up, stares at the old woman. She’s got steel in her glare, and it’s directed at him. “You are not allowed to fall apart. He needs you. Get yourself together.”

He swallows. Remembers to keep up the front. Maybe he won’t be allowed to stay with John if he’s not family. He doesn’t know. “Yes, Nan.”  

“Take his hand. Let him know you’re here.”

Sherlock glances at the paramedic across from him, who’s holding her gloved hands hard against John’s side. Keeping pressure on the wound. Keeping John’s blood inside his body. The thought makes his head swim. She nods at him. “Go on then. Your nan’s right. He needs the reassurance.”

He looks up at John for the first time since they got in the ambulance, which feels like it was hours ago, but he knows it’s been less than two minutes. John’s face is a better colour than it was before, probably from the steady IV drip of saline solution _the body will turn salt into blood cells over the course of several days_ into his arm. His lips no longer blue, but not their normal red either. His eyes are closed. There’s so much blood. It’s everywhere. The paramedics opened his shirt to put the bandage on, a huge smear of blood across his lower belly _Has anyone ever done this for you before, John? You’re the first bloke. That counts._ Oh god, oh god. He’s shivering, shaking. This is all his fault.

The old woman leans across the ambulance, puts a hand on his knee. Steadying. The ambulance jitters to the side, rocks as they go over a speed hump. “You can do it. Take his hand.”

Through his shock and panic, Sherlock reaches out tentatively, winds his fingers under John’s, laying still, so horribly still, on the stretcher. He threads them together, John’s barely responding, just the barest flicker of movement against Sherlock’s hand. He bows his head down to John’s forearm. Sherlock's an atheist. He doesn't believe in god.  _Please god, let him live. Please._

There’s a shifting of weight, a settling beside him on the tiny bench, a hand on his back. “He’s going to be just fine. Just fine.”

She's rubbing his back. A complete stranger. Normally it would feel so intrusive, but it's oddly comforting. They stay that way, Sherlock’s forehead bumping against John’s arm, the old woman’s hand gently working circles on his back, the ambulance weaving rhythmically, until they screech to a halt in front of St. Bartholomew’s. It’s a flurry, Sherlock being pushed aside as they roll the stretcher out, John being rushed inside the building, Sherlock stumbling along behind trying to keep up. The hospital's so bright, everything white and harsh and empty looking. They roll John between two swinging doors and there’s a hand on his chest.

“Sorry, no further, not right now. You can wait over there in those chairs.” A finger, pointing past his nose. Everything’s all broken up, bits of people, chunks of building. He’s lost inside his mind, everything’s so jumbled. He needs John to sort it out. Needs John to put him right. _I've got you, I've got you._ John's hand sticky and warm and perfect on his hip. John's back sweaty against his belly. John pale and far too still on a stretcher.

There's a rumble in his stomach, a sharp contraction, and his shoulders heave. He can't stop it. Leans forward and throws up all over the floor, all over his shoes, the cuffs of his jeans. Vomit dripping out of his nose, hunched over with his hands braced on his knees.

Someone's hands on his shoulders.

“Alright, you. I know, I know. Let’s just clean you up a bit and get you calmed down.” The old woman again. She’s still here. She pushes him by the shoulders into a hard blue plastic chair. Her nose inches from his, bright hazel eyes looking at him almost sternly. “ _Don’t you move._ I’ll be right back with some wet towels and a nice cuppa.”

He nods dumbly, mute and sick inside. His mind’s on a loop. A flash of a knife, John falling limply to the floor, the sound of his trainers slick with John’s blood squeaking up the steps, the flip of the old woman’s phone opening. Jim’s vile grin as he walked past him. John’s eyes glowing with laughter, John’s arms warm round his waist, John cross legged next to him in the alley. _Want the pickle? I hate pickles._ John’s blood everywhere.

A warm paper cup is shoved into his hand. The smell of stale tea wafts up at him. She's wiping his face with a damp paper towel, wiping down his arms. She tosses the first towel in a nearby biohazard bin, produces another clean one and wipes off his hands and fingers, wipes off his shoes. He can't even move to do it himself, just watches her cleaning John's blood and his own vomit off of him, mute and trembling with fear and exhaustion.

"Drink your tea, there you are." She nudges the cup at his mouth, and he automatically takes a sip, lukewarm and bitter, too much sugar in it. All the same, it's comforting. Familiar. Washes the bitter sourness out of his mouth.

Suddenly he wants a cigarette so badly he can't bear it. He's reached in his pocket and pulled out the pack before he even knows what he's doing. A hand closes over his.

"Not in here, dear. Can you walk?"

He nods.

"Alright then. Let's get you outside. Come on." She slips an arm though Sherlock's and pats his hand. “Don’t drop your tea.”

"Why are you here?" It bursts out of him, and he clamps his mouth shut again. God it sounds so fucking rude, but he can't be bothered to make himself polite right now.

She doesn't look offended; instead she laughs softly, and squeezes his arm. "What was I going to do? Leave you boys all alone? No, that wouldn't have done. Wouldn't have done at all."

No one except John has ever been randomly kind to Sherlock before. She’s another miracle of John, of his presence in Sherlock's life; this woman in her silken scarf and patterned dress, her heels and pearls, out for a day of sightseeing and instead...she's here in this hospital, with John's blood on her arm and helping Sherlock outside to smoke.

_John would say thank you._

"Thank you." To his great surprise, it's heartfelt. He means it. He is thankful. For her calling 999, for staying with him, just for noticing he was there in the first place. No one ever looks at him anymore. The invisible street kid no one wants to see. But she did. She saw him, and she helped them, and she’s still here.

It’s windy out, leaves swirling. It’s stopped raining, but the sky is burnished a flat matte grey and the air is damp, the chill reaching right into his bone marrow. Sherlock shivers in his tee shirt and thin jeans, wraps his arms around himself, trying to keep himself from breaking into pieces.

She guides him to a wood slatted bench and sits down next to him, crosses her legs and holds out her hand. "You're welcome. I'll take one of those, dear. Not exactly a normal day for me either."

He hands her a cigarette and lights it for her. She smokes elegantly, like Audrey Hepburn, her hands long and graceful, blowing the smoke out above her head, chin tilted up. Guilt tramples through him. _How dare you be noticing anything, thinking of anything but John in there fighting for his life? It's your fault, you wretched failure of a person. You worthless callous little piece of..._

"It's not your fault, you know. Whatever happened to him. It's not your fault, dear. It's clear he's very special to you, and I'm sure you'd never hurt him." She blows the smoke out of the side of her mouth, pats his knee. “I’m sure he loves you very much too.”

"He’s got no reason to. It's all my fault. It truly is _all.my.fault._ If he'd never met me, this would never have happened to him." Sherlock drags hard on the cigarette, smoke pluming around his face as he lets his head drop into his hand. He feels wrung out, hollow. Like he did all the time before John swept in, all golden smiles and warm skin and laughter. "I'm a fucking curse."

"I'm sure that's not true." She tosses her cigarette and takes Sherlock's out of his hand, crushes it with her shiny green pump. "Now let's stop all this wallowing and go see how your young man is doing. What's his name, dear?"

Sherlock swallows over the lump in his throat. "John. His name is John Watson."

"That's a nice name. Solid. And you are?” She looks at him questioningly, but gently. What has he ever done to deserve people like this? _Nothing. You’ve done nothing, you piece of shit. And they’ll all leave you, sooner or later._

“Sherlock Holmes.” Usually he gives out a fake name, to adults, to strangers, but she deserves the real one.

“That’s unusual. Suits you. I’m Martha Hudson. You can call me Mrs Hudson, almost everyone does, even my friends. Now, let’s go check on John.” She pats him arm again, in such a motherly way that his stomach churns, and he suddenly desperately wants his own mother, her grey bun and sensible shoes, her ruddy round cheeks. He wants to smell her lavender soap on her skin. She wouldn’t hold him, wouldn’t hug him, because that wasn’t her way...but she would be there. She would sit, and read, and when Sherlock started to fall apart, she wouldn’t allow it. _We do not cry, Sherlock. We are Holmses. Pull yourself together, my love._

He nods, unable to speak without his voice breaking.

Mrs Hudson pushes open the heavy metal door and holds it as Sherlock shuffles through. John would have held the door for her, not the other way round, you rude obnoxious… He can’t stop. Can’t stop these thoughts that were incessant before John, even before Jim. Consuming him. He needs to fly. The sweet hard snap of his skin under a needle, the oblivion that comes right after. He’s shaking again.

A doctor in blue scrubs - why is everything in hospital blue? - and a plastic mask meets them in the hallway. There are barely any other patients there. Must be a strange time for traumatic emergencies, 11:00am. _Why do you even notice these things, Sherlock? Useless information, stupid. Delete, delete._

“You all next of kin?” The doctor looks dubiously at them, gives Sherlock a once over and then focuses on Mrs Hudson, clearly more comfortable talking to her than to the trembling blood and vomit soaked teenager beside her.

“Yes, doctor. John’s my grandson, and Sherlock is as well. Cousins. Distant. Sherlock’s visiting from the countryside.” My god, this woman can lie. Sherlock can’t help but be impressed, somewhere in the back of his mind where he’s not coming apart at the seams.

“Well, he’s - would you like to sit down? Here, let’s go in the family room.” The doctor motions them into a small room two meters down the hallway, with a table covered in old ripped up magazines and four scrungy looking chairs. The doctor just looks at them, allowing Mrs Hudson to put her purse on the floor, arrange themselves. He’s not saying anything. _Why isn’t he saying anything? Oh god._

“Is John dead?” There he goes again, saying the first harsh unfiltered thing that pops in his mind. It makes him sick to say it, his stomach lurches and he's afraid he's going to throw up again.

The doctor looks at him, eyes sympathetic and soft. “No, son. He’s not dead. He’s got a fairly serious laceration to his liver, lost a large amount of blood. I don’t believe the liver itself will require surgery, but he’ll require almost constant bed rest for the next several days. We've repaired the exterior wound. He's awake. Tired and in some pain, but awake. Give us thirty minutes or so to get him settled in a room and we’ll let you see him, alright?”

Relief surges through him, so powerfully he’s weak from it. A strangled sob lurches out of his throat, his eyes prickling with tears. _John’s alright. John’s alive. John’s awake. John John John John._ He needs to touch him, see those blue eyes open wide, make him laugh. Thirty minutes is an eternity.

Mrs Hudson speaks up before Sherlock can. “Thank you so much, doctor. Shall we wait here?”

“Yes ma’am. And…” The doctor pauses, looks at his hands and then at Sherlock directly, “The police will be coming. We have to alert them whenever there’s a violent injury. You’ll have to speak to them when they arrive. They should be here before we move him to a room.”

Fuck. Shit. He should have known there would be police involved. His mind starts racing, trying to sort out a story that doesn’t involve Jim, because then they truly would be dead. Jim’s slippery as a fish, he’ll never end up in prison. They’ll probably end up dead anyway, because John wasn’t meant to live, and he’s alive. Jim will never leave them alone. _Jim will never leave them alone._

He realises, with sudden and blinding clarity that Jim has to be taken care of. He thinks of his father’s gun cabinet, polished walnut and brass knobs, oiled guns that are never used. Antiques that his father polishes with a flannel cloth when he’s feeling tense and needs to busy his hands. Never loaded. Ammunition kept far out of reach of two incessantly curious children. _Boys, you mustn’t ever touch these._

Sherlock’s never held a gun in his life. _No one hurts John._

Now that he knows John’s going to live, the fear and shock is changing over to anger. A ball of red hot fury making his shoulders clench tight. _No one hurts John._

The doctor is up and leaving the room. “We’ll send for you both when you can see him.”

“Thank you, doctor.” Mrs Hudson smiles, lays a hand on Sherlock’s knee as the doctor disappears down the hallway. He stares at it, emerges from his thoughts of Jim and revenge, the fury and fear tangible, like a stone lodged in his esophagus. “Better?”

He musters the energy to speak. “Yes. Thank you. For...everything. You don’t have to stay.”

“I’m sure you’ll want John all to yourself. But listen.” She reaches into her bag, pulls out a pen and a receipt and jots something down on the back, takes Sherlock’s hand and tucks the paper inside. “You boys call me if you need anything, alright? Don’t hesitate, dear. I mean that.”

She clicks her bag shut, and with a squeeze of Sherlock’s wrist,sweeps out the door, leaving behind her the faint lingering scent of gardenia perfume. He opens his hand and looks at the receipt. There’s a phone number and an address - 221 Baker Street - and below, _If you ever need a place to stay, dear!_

He’s still staring at the note, disbelieving of Mrs Hudson’s kindness, trying to process everything that’s happened since they woke up this morning, when footsteps sound in the hall, and he looks up to see a young dark haired police officer standing in the doorway. Stubble, premature grey hairs peppering the dark brown, mouth set in what looks like an almost perpetual frown, enormous liquid brown eyes ringed with thick dark lashes that make him look younger than he is. He can’t be much older than John and Sherlock, maybe twenty two, at the oldest. Sergeant stripes at his collar already. Motivated, a go getter. Perhaps not that intelligent, but knows the system, works overtime. The type that sleeps in his desk chair instead of going home.

“You the cousin?” Accent somewhat muddled. Maybe from Essex. Definitely working class. Maybe the first in his family not to do manual labour.

Sherlock clears his throat, willing himself to be calm and lie like he knows he can. Act compliant. _Smile, Sherlock._  “Yes, officer.”

“I’m Sergeant Lestrade. I’ve got some questions for you.”

***

**Who did this?**

_I don’t know._

**Did you know this person?**

_No, officer._

**How did you come to be in that tube station?**

_We were just out sightseeing. Thought we’d have a little adventure. Obviously that was a bad idea._

**Where did you say you were from?**

_Cotswolds._

**Address where you can be reached?**

_221 Baker Street_

**I’m going to have more questions for you, Mr Holmes. Don’t disappear now.**

_No, officer._

The conversation with Sergeant Lestrade plays over in his mind on the lift to the floor where John is. Lestrade wasn’t overly brilliant, but very thorough, and definitely didn’t buy Sherlock’s story about being from the Cotswolds. He had too much of the wary city boy about him, the track marks on his arms obvious in his short sleeved tee shirt. Sherlock got the feeling Lestrade hadn’t bought much of what Sherlock had told him, his eyes continuously flicking to the track marks, his sunken eyes.

He should probably warn Mrs Hudson that he gave her address as where he could be reached in London, but he’s got no phone and no public places have telephones anymore. He’s still pondering how to contact her when the lift stops and the doors part onto the trauma unit. Several bored looking nurses sit behind a high counter, clacking away on keyboards, their faces locked on computer monitors. Sherlock begins to wander down the hall, looking for the room John’s in.

“Sir? Sir, where are you going? You can’t just roam the unit. Are you looking for someone?” One of the bored nurses steps from behind the counter, approaches him.

“John Watson?” Inexplicably nervous, his stomach roiling. All he wants is John, he’s tired of talking to everyone but John. _I just need to see him, see him breathing and safe._

“The boy who got stabbed, yeah?” She turns, asking one of the other nurses, whose head jerks up once in assent, her eyes never leaving the computer screen. The nurse turns back to Sherlock, beckons him in the opposite direction from the way he’d been heading. “Come on, he’s down this way.”

Her shoes squeak on the linoleum floor, pants swishing as she walks. It’s extremely quiet except for the beep of monitors, the click of fingers on keyboards. No voices. No tellys turned too loud. No hum of traffic. There’s a hush that gives the entire place a dreamlike quality. They reach a closed wood door with a huge brushed metal handle.

“Here we are. if he’s sleeping, don’t wake him. He needs the rest.”

Sherlock nods, and she gives him what she must think is an encouraging kind of smile. Sherlock sucks in a breath, feeling every single alveoli expand. Pushes the door open, leaving the nurse standing in the hallway, smiling inanely at him.

The room is semi-private, but the second bed is unoccupied. Someone’s put the telly on, football match droning in the background. The curtain’s drawn half round the bed, and Sherlock can’t actually see John at first, just the outline of his calves and feet under the blanket. He pulls back the curtain as quietly as he can, mindful not to wake him if he’s sleeping. John looks so tiny. So small and fragile and white, laying against baby blue sheets, his face turned towards the window and away from Sherlock. He stops dead, paralysed by his conflicting instincts to both run away and also crawl on top of John and hold him so tight his arms go numb. He can’t move, can’t speak, just stands there, hand still gripping the edge of the soft cotton curtain.

John slowly turns his head and blinks confusedly for a moment, then licks his lips and smiles at the sight of Sherlock standing there. “Hey gorgeous. Was wondering where you got to.”

His voice is so hoarse, barely audible. Words a bit slurred. He must be on pain medication. Sherlock gnaws into his lip. _Don’t cry. Do not cry in front of John._ He opens his mouth, closes it again with a soft popping sound.

“Sherlock? You okay?” John’s brow furrows, blue eyes shading with concern.

Something snaps inside Sherlock at John's being concerned about him. It's so wrong, so unfair, that he should be cared about like this by someone like John. It's so wrong that John should even be out here; that anyone has ever hurt John is anathema, and Sherlock is rapidly filled with cold rage at himself, John's parents, Jim, the goddamned goon with the knife. This is all so very very wrong.

“Oh my god, John, Jesus. You’re -- you’re lying there with a stab wound to your liver, inflicted on you because of me, and you’re asking if I’m okay?! If I’m okay. _No_ , of course I’m not okay. I just watched you nearly bleed to death in front of me. How would I possibly be okay? And why should you care right now? Jesus fucking Christ, John. Why would you _ask_ me that? What is _wrong_ with you??” Sherlock clamps his hand over his mouth, horrified at himself, shame seeping through him. _You always say the wrong thing._ “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

John starts laughing, which quickly turns to coughing. He winces, pants out a harsh breath and presses his hand to his side. The fit passes, and he picks up a styrofoam cup from the tray beside the bed, tosses some ice chips into his mouth and chews, watching Sherlock.

“Come here. Why are you so far away? What are you, afraid of me?” John pats the edge of the bed. “Sherlock, come here.”

_He’s going to hate you. You’re so stupid, and it was your ex, your drug dealer, you’re the one who said it was fine, you’re the one who didn’t look before going into St Mark’s, it’s all your fault, and…_

“Sherlock. Whatever’s going on in that genius brain of yours, turn it off. I can practically see your fucking gears turning behind your eyes.” John shuffles his hips to the side, makes room. “Please just come and sit with me.”

“Okay.” Sherlock lowers himself gingerly to the very edge of the bed, very aware of how his shirt is becoming hard with drying blood, and that he must smell like sick.

“Sherlock, I’m not going to break. It’s not even really that bad of an injury, just...a lot of blood because of where it was. I mean it could have been bad, but it wasn’t, and I’m fine. I ruptured my spleen once during a rugby match. That was way worse.” John tilts his head, reaches his hand out and lays it against Sherlock’s back. “Sherlock. Will you fucking look at me, please? I’m starting to get kind of annoyed here. I did take a knife to the gut earlier, maybe you could at least make eye contact?”

“I don’t want to -- Aren’t you angry with me?”

“What?” John’s entire face furrows in confusion, somehow managing to look half amused and desperately sad at the same time. _How does he do that -- have five expressions on his face all at once?_ “No. Why would I be angry with you?”

“Because. Because this is my fault.”

“It’s not.”

“It is, don’t say it’s not! Stop doing that! Stop protecting me from what I am. It’s not your job to save me!” Trembling, Sherlock breathes out through his nose and fixes his eyes on the wall.

“I’m not trying to save you.” John looks down at the sheets, plucks at his hospital gown. “I love you. It’s not the same.”

“No?”

“No. I don’t feel sorry for you. I’m not pitying you, Sherlock. It’s not some good samaritan bullshit.” John sucks his top lip into his teeth, his eyes wary and a bit glazed. “So can you just cut the shit and come here and let me sleep on you? Cause I’m really fucking knackered - it’s more tiring than you would think, being stabbed - and I just really want to lay with you. Can you just stop being so...whatever the hell you’re being right now, and just do that? And we’ll talk about everything later? _Please._ I’m too tired to fight.”

“John.” Sherlock’s voice a harsh whisper, not trusting himself to say everything he’s feeling. _Sentiment._ It’s so debilitating. “I was -- I thought you were going to --”

“I know. I did too for a minute.” John’s hand strokes down his back once, his voice softer than it was. “I’m so tired.”

“I have to tell you about Mrs Hudson. And we’re going to have to talk to the police again.” Don’t tell him about Jim. That’s for you to do, Sherlock. Don’t worry him with that.

“You talked to the police?”

“Yes. We have to sort out our story before they talk to you.”

“Okay, but later. Please come here. If you make me ask again, I’m going to start thinking you want me to beg.”

Sherlock turns with another apology on his lips, but John’s smiling mischieviously. One eyebrow crooked up, biting his lower lip. He’s so pale, those red lips barely pink, every freckle on his nose standing out dark brown against his grey white skin.

“Why do you want me? All I’ve brought you is shit and misery.” Despite himself, Sherlock turns and shimmies, curls half on his side in the space John’s made for him, and kicks his ruined trainers off on the floor, where they land with a dull thump. The mattress is lumpy, springs poking into his hip and rib cage.

John turns slowly, on his good side, and melts into Sherlock’s chest, his body heavy and chilled. His hands are freezing. Sherlock wraps his arms around his shoulders, and tucks his face into his hair, rubs his nose back and forth. Sherlock's wracked by long shuddering exhalation, relief, and fear, and guilt making it hard to breathe properly.

“Shut up, Sherlock. Stop trying to convince me I don't want you. It's bollocks. Just be quiet. I love you. It's just how it is, so get used to it. Be happy. We get a few free days sleeping in the hospital. Food and everything.” John laughs quietly, tucks his freezing cold hand under Sherlock’s tee shirt. He wrinkles his nose. “Christ, you smell awful."

"I...I got sick." His voice trembles. 

"Oh, Sherlock." John's hand strokes down his belly, and he shivers, despite everything.

"I was..."

"Shhhh. I know. I don't mind. Truly. You still smell better than that first day we met." John rubs a slow circle on his skin, and chuckles sleepily.

"Shut up, John." Sherlock allows himself a small smile.

"I'm going to. I’m going to go to sleep now.”

“Go to sleep, John.”

“Don’t go anywhere.”

“I won’t.” Sherlock presses his lips to John’s hair, settles back as comfortably as he can, cradling John in his arms, careful not to let his weight rest anywhere near the wound. John’s breathing slows, becoming even and shallow. He shuffles closer, burrowing tight to Sherlock and sighing. Sherlock allows his own eyes to close. He’s remarkably tired himself. _Maybe just a quick kip..._

Just as he’s drifting off, he hears footsteps into the room and his eyes fly open, half expecting Jim to be standing there. Instead, it’s a tall red headed girl, tight jeans and a bright yellow sweater that doesn’t quite cover her flat stomach. Her eyes are huge and blue - _dark black streaked indigo blue, exactly like_ \-- and widened in surprise at Sherlock and John, laying there entangled on the bed.

“Johnny, oh god.” She whispers, hands coming up and covering her mouth. Her eyes flick to Sherlock, narrow suspiciously. Hands come away from her mouth and she plants them on her hips. “Who the hell are you?”

Anger and possessiveness surge up in him, arms instinctively tightening around the rise and fall of John’s sleeping body. “I’m his boyfriend, who the hell are you?”

“I’m Harry, I’m Johnny’s sister.” Her hip cocks to the side, and her mouth purses in a way that reminds Sherlock viscerally of John. Same eyes, same expressions, same self assuredness. They’re tough, these Watsons. “The hospital called me. What’s _your_ name, then, boyfriend?”

She didn’t flinch at the word boyfriend, doesn’t look surprised. John must have been out to her, they must be close. Sherlock realises he really doesn’t know. He didn’t even know her name. John is still effectively a stranger to him in a lot of ways, ways that suddenly hurt. Now faced with Harry, a sister, someone who’s known John his whole life, Sherlock is drowning in his own inadequacy. _You're so useless._

“Sherlock.”

She doesn’t ask about his last name.

“Have you been with him this whole time? Since he ran off?” She’s accusatory, angry. She blames him. _Good. They’ll have something in common._

“No. I just…” He doesn’t want to tell her he’s only known John for little more than 48 hours. “Where the hell have you been, then? Why didn’t he come to you?”

She opens her mouth. Shuts it again. Considers him for a moment, and crosses her arms over her chest. “I don’t know. That’s a good question. I guess I’ll ask him when he wakes up. I’m staying.”

“Fine. You’re not going to call your parents.” It’s not a question. John is his to protect now.

Her face crumples in disgust. “No. I’m not going to call our parents. Jesus, why would you think I’d do that?”

“Because I don’t know you. And I don’t know what you’d be likely to do, and I won’t have John hurt anymore.” _Even though it’s your fault he’s here in the first place._

“Fair enough.” She sucks her teeth, another shared mannerism with John. She flops into a chair and crosses her ankles. “I guess Johnny’ll be asleep for a while. What should we talk about, Sherlock?”

“Um.” _Please don’t ask me how this happened, please._

“Let’s just watch the match, then, yeah?” She laughs at their obvious discomfort with each other and pulls the chair round so she can see the telly. “Manchester fan? Johnny always liked Cardiff City. I dunno. He likes Welsh stuff.”

They lapse into silence, Sherlock’s arm going numb under the weight of John’s back, his neck stiff. Harry throws her legs up on the end of the bed, and hunches down in the chair, murmuring a little _yes_  at the match every now and then. Sherlock watches her, instead of the match, takes in how her nose is just like John’s, the speckling of freckles over her nose and cheeks, her long reddish eyelashes, chipped black nail varnish and soft leather engineer boots. Her intelligence radiates off her. Sherlock can almost smell it. She's got the self confidence of someone who truly doesn't care if anyone likes them, doesn't care what other people think. He likes her. He never likes people right off, never.

These Watsons. They’re a whole different species. 

**  
  
  
  
  
**


	5. Chapter 5

Blackfriars Bridge at sunrise glitters like liquid coal, like onyx, the sun reflecting off a century of thick black paint and stone. Parliament looms golden in the west, a bastion of everything proper and official and good about England, everything Sherlock and John aren't. Round one of the Thames S-curves to the east, only the shining white tip of St Paul's, the sky orange and pink behind the dome.

Sherlock swallows hard, drags on his cigarette and wipes his eyes. _John is alright. John's not angry. John doesn't hate me._ Little consolation knowing these things when Jim is out there, when no place feels safe. Little consolation in a life so full of exhausting and frightening moments; in a neverending search for clean needles and safe places to sleep, knives slashing in the dark, digging through bins for half drunk Costa's cups and half smoked cigarettes, blood and vomit and terror and always being on the edge of something dangerously dark and bigger than himself.

Jim will never leave them alone.

There's a shuffling noise to his left, and he jerks, turns, more than half expecting to see Jim's hooded brown eyes peering at him. Just a pigeon pecking at a stale chip under the bench.

He watches the pigeon, brown and white, sharp black beak, choking the hard chip down his throat, head jerking up towards the pale silvery sky. Sherlock's heart is still pounding.

 _Jumpy, Sherlock?_ He can hear Jim's voice in his ear, feel it against his temple. Jim is a spectre, always at the periphery, but dangerous and real in his retribution.

Sherlock lights another cigarette, though he's running low and they're desperately expensive - almost £10 a pack now. He has to process, to divide and sort all that's happened in the last few days in his mind, parse it out so he can analyse it. He has to tell himself it's alright to be here, to watch the sun rising over the river, to breathe air that isn't stale and full of hospital smells. That it's alright to not be physically watching over John's tiny perfect beautiful miraculous body every single second. John is safe. John is with Harry. Sherlock needs a moment to sit and think. Needs to plan.

Harry spent all night with them, talking in soft private whispers with John, holding his hand when he let her, brushing his hair back tenderly from his forehead. John jerked away from her sometimes, got angry, brow furrowed and tense, his voice lowered into a harsh whisper. Harry's voice occasionally rose, got strident and strained, she petted at John's hands and called him Johnny, tears shining in her eyes. Sherlock sat, arms crossed, in a chair at the foot of the bed, unable and unwilling to sleep, seeing John's wary happiness at Harry's presence. Felt protective, possessive, watching John's storm blue eyes filling with tears even as he smiled, how his lips quivered when he laughed.

_Mine now. Doesn't belong to you anymore._

Finally, at near midnight, Sherlock put an end to it.

 _Harry, he needs to sleep._  
Yes, you're right, of course. I'm sorry.  
 _You can talk tomorrow._  
You take good care of him, Sherlock. I can see it.  
 _We take care of each other._  
I see it. I understand.   
 _Do you? You should. Because I'll do anything for him._    
I know you will. 

Harry had folded her legs up to her chest, leaned sideways with her head against the back of the chair and smiled indulgently at them both as Sherlock hovered beside John's bed. She did, she understood what they were to each other, and she loved Sherlock for it. He saw it in her eyes, the same softness he saw in John's. She wrapped her arms round her calves and closed her eyes, and Sherlock climbed slowly into bed with John.

Sherlock had curled his shaking sweating body next to John's, his head thick. The pillow cool and firm, white sheets and industrial strength laundry soap. John's warm fingers soothing his brow.  _Are you alright, love? Is it the drugs?_ Sherlock nodded, his frontal lobe hitting his skull, feeling with painful clarity the movement of every hair on his body, every nerve ending. His skin was on fire. His skin was made of ice. His head pounded and he writhed in pain, muscles cramping and convulsing.

John whispered tender words, _Baby_ and _I love you a_ nd _Everything's going to be fine_ , and somehow understood Sherlock couldn't bear to be touched too much. He slept feverishly, reveling in the comfort of John next to him, thankful for the icy cold air conditioning on a body simultaneously speeding out of control and trying to shut itself down.

Sherlock had run half a dozen times in the early morning to the loo down the hallway from John's room to vomit viciously, his throat scraped raw, eyes feeling like they were bursting from their sockets. John awake every time he came back, watching him with gentle eyes, mouthing a silent _You okay_? Sherlock would nod and sink into the bed, fall asleep if he could, John's lips in his hair. 

At five am, he had awoken with a start, his body weak and exhausted, but his mind clearer than it had been in months. John was asleep, turned toward Sherlock with his mouth against his shoulder and his fingers curled loosely against Sherlock's waist. He was dreaming, eyes moving frenetically beneath their lids, blonde lashes fluttering. Sherlock watched him, the small purse of his red mouth, the way his nostrils flared infinitesimally when he inhaled, the rise and fall of his collarbones as he breathed. Mesmerised, Sherlock stayed awake, taking in every curve and rise of John's face, every pore, every short blonde hair along his square jaw. Sherlock's eyes fixed on John's as they opened, blinking sleepily. 

_Morning, John._  
 _Morning, love._

They laid there, Harry's soft snores the only other sound in the room, tracing each other's faces with their fingertips, and shifting until their knees were locked together, Sherlock cradling John in one arm. John picked up Sherlock's other hand, twined their fingers together, his eyes never leaving Sherlock's face. John tilted his chin up, mouth slightly open, wet his lips with that bright pink tongue, and pulled on Sherlock's tee shirt until Sherlock tore his eyes away from John's long enough to kiss him. John's lips were dry, Sherlock's cracked, their breath stale and sour. Neither cared, lost in the wonder of being together, their mouths only parting to murmur thankful promises. _You're amazing. Thank god you're alright. I can't be without you. I love you I love you I love you. You make me crazy._ Kisses deeper, more heated, Sherlock's breathing ragged against John's breathing back into his mouth, quiet gasps turning to moans as John's fingers snuck under Sherlock's shirt and Sherlock pulled John closer closer closer until their bellies pressed together and Sherlock's leg was clutched tight between John's thighs.

Finally Harry stretched and yawned, and with reluctant sighs they moved apart, the intimacy interrupted. Harry gave them a knowing smirk, her eyes raccooned by smeared mascara, and patted John's leg. _I'll go to the canteen. Get us brekkie._ She left, and Sherlock dragged himself to the loo to wash his face and rinse his mouth out. The three of them ate soggy hospital eggs and stale toast in the dark grey minutes of the morning, silent and lost in their own thoughts. 

When Harry had gone to throw their wrappers away in the hallway bin, John clasped Sherlock's hand urgently. _We need that money, Sherlock. Can you go and get it? Don't say anything to Harry. We'll tell her you have to get our things. Say nothing about the money._

He knew they _did_ need it, that they couldn't do anything without it. The only reason he agreed to leave John at the hospital with Harry. _Sherlock, please. I'll be fine, he won't come here. But we must have it, it's everything we've got. Just get the money and hurry back. I'll still be here, love. I'm safe here, it's alright._

So John begged and Sherlock acquiesced, because he _had_ to, because with John he couldn't not. Kissed him hard and desperate, promising to be back as soon as possible. John stroked his face, touched his hair, told him to be careful. 

_Watch your back, and don't you dare go down there if anything seems dodgy. I love you so much._  
 _I love you too, John. I'll be careful._

Harry rolled her eyes a bit derisively, but affectionately, at them, excusing herself to the hallway as they kissed goodbye with soft lips and achingly tender noises as if they were leaving one another for much longer than an hour or so. John's tongue pink hot perfect touching the very edge of Sherlock's lower lip, his eyes laden with want as Sherlock pulled back. Sherlock dropped a kiss to the tip of his nose and left, feeling John's eyes following him out the door. Harry silently brushed her hand down his arm as he passed her, and he squeezed her fingers. These Watsons. He was rather beginning to love them both.

Knowing Jim's habit of sleeping until past noon, Sherlock had made sure to leave before sunrise, stepping quietly through a London that belonged only to street kids and city workers; swirling leaves, leftover beer bottles and empty crisp bags, the air not yet rife with soot and exhaust, but the sweet smells of night blooming flowers and fresh fruit stalls. He walked down the embankment, drawn incessantly to the river, until smooth concrete gave way to crooked cobblestones. He looked up, having been lost in thought, to see the uneven outline of the Tower against the blue black sky. He hung a right at Traitor's Gate and then slipped catlike down into the damp darkness of St Mark's. 

The money was miraculously still there. He scraped the contents of the box into a grimy reuseable Sainsbury's bag that he'd found stuffed in the end of his sleeping bag and then wrapped the bag in a ragged black hoodie. He stared for many minutes longer than he should have at the milk carton overturned on his heroin. He _shouldn't_ want it. He knew this. His body is over it, and he has John now. It's not so simple as that. 

As wretched as the last fifteen months of his life have been, they are _his._ They belong to him, in a way that the rest of his life never has. Everything before controlled, directed by his parents, by Mycroft, by his brain and his talent. Nothing ever his choice. Until he left. Only then had he claimed some portion of  his own identity, been allowed to not be clever or brilliant or talented. Been allowed to just be, without demands being placed upon him.

The heroin was some strange part of that identity, and while his body may have let it go more easily than he'd imagined it could, his mind now had a hard time allowing that self to slip away. Hundreds of nights, floating out of himself, above the glittering river, his mind flowing expanding reaching for something beyond himself, played at the edges of his memory as he stared at that black plastic crate. Mornings of wandering hungry and exhausted through the empty streets, finding himself sitting on the concrete wall outside the Globe,  or vaulting over the barriers to get down to the sandy banks of the river, digging his toes into the damp earth and watching Parliament emerge golden and shimmering from the morning fog, wondering how it was that anyone accomplished great things when life was so hard to manage. 

In the end, he left it. It was part of a past well left behind. He had John now. _John John John._ It was like a prayer. His own prayer. If he believed in anything, it was John Watson. 

Tramping up the steps of St Mark's into the early morning sunshine, money and his meager treasures tucked securely under his arm. He smoked and walked, found himself sinking down onto a bench at Blackfriars, farther away from St Bart's than Tower Bridge. He had wandered in the wrong direction. Sat on the bench and smoked. 

Now here he is, staring at the river, at the sun, down at his own jagged fingernails and filthy trainers. 

He has no idea what to do. No real idea what Harry and John talked about during the night, or what effect it will have on their life together. In all fairness, Sherlock's never known, never had a clear path forward in life. His mother used to call him _my lost lamb_ , and that still felt applicable. The only thing that was clear, and real, and right, was John. _Probably not healthy, Sherlock. Co dependency, Sherlock. He'll tire of you one day, Sherlock_. He shut his eyes and stuffed his fingers in his ears, let the sound of rushing blood sweep these ugly thoughts away. He exhaled smoke and sorrow and fear, resolved to go back to John and not burden him with this shit. 

John with his bright eyes and his shining smile that he smiles with his whole face with his body, like his heart is beaming right through his skin and his pores and the ends his golden hair. John who loved him the moment they met and who has given him soft kisses and words no one else ever has and everything Sherlock never knew he was missing until three days ago. John who makes everything awful seem less so.

This moment, while he's staring at Blackfriars Bridge and the strangely beautiful brackish water flowing underneath, thinking about John's mouth kiss swollen murmuring _I've never been so happy, Sherlock_ , this is the moment Sherlock realises he has to take care of Jim alone. That John can't know until after. Because keeping John safe is all that matters, and John will never let him go alone if he knows. 

He nods to himself, sucks the cigarette down to the filter and flicks it into the struggling patch of grass next to the bench. The mid morning sun is hot on his back as he trudges up Ludgate Hill toward the hospital, calm in his certainty that no matter what happens to him, Jim won't hurt John again.

***

Harry’s gone and John’s asleep when he gets back to the hospital. There's a note scrawled on a brown canteen napkin taped to the door with a plaster. _I had a lecture this morning and Johnny insisted he was alright. He says you both have a place to stay. If you don't, please call me. You can crash on the floor of my flat. Both of you. xoxo Harry_

There's a phone number at the bottom. Sherlock knows John won't want to call his sister for help, but he tucks the note in the back pocket of his jeans, anyway. Harry loves John. She bought him ice creams, took him for outings, tried to make their terrible lives a little better, and the moment he needed her, she was here. She's devoted to him, as much as he'll allow her to be.

What would Mycroft say? _Well done, little brother. You've found someone just as utterly lost as yourself. I hope you're happy together in your tiny little lives._

Sherlock stands in the doorway thinking of all the vile insults Mycroft would throw at him if he saw the depth of sentiment he had allowed himself.  He watches John sleep for just a moment, and then crosses the room stealthily, climbs silently into bed with John, the bag of money still pressed against his chest. He'll probably never even see Mycroft again. It's just himself and John now. Just the two of them against the rest of the world. He likes that thought. 

John instinctively rolls toward him, exhaling noisily and darting his tongue over his cracked lips. His eyes don’t open, but he smiles in his sleep and his eyelids twitch and dart. Dreaming. Sherlock passes a worshipful hand over his cheek, and John nudges into the touch.

“Sherlock.” John slurs, still deep in a dream. His hands scrabble forward, clutching at air.

Sherlock takes both John’s petite hands in one of his and lays them against his sternum, so John can feel him breathing. “I’m here.” 

John’s smile is tranquil, the frantic movement of his eyelids slowing. “Mkay,” so quietly that Sherlock barely hears him.

Sherlock doesn’t sleep. He watches the fluttering of John’s heartbeat in his temple, thinks about the blood in his veins, keeping him alive, the blood on the tile at St Mark’s, and a cold deadly fury skids the lengths of his nerves. He turns over his plan in his mind, over and over, searching for holes, for mistakes, for ways he could really monumentally fuck this up. He rubs his fingers over DS Lestrade's card in his pocket and stares out into the grey sky, until he can't think anymore, until all his thoughts are running together and he's losing the threads that connect them. 

He has to _do_ something.

He crawls out of the bed as quietly as possible, careful not to wake John, and goes out to the nurses’ station. They’re all clacking away on their keyboards, different nurses than the ones yesterday. No one looks up. Sherlock clears his throat. 

An older woman glances up and cocks her eyebrow at him. “Yes?”

Sherlock smiles his winningest smile and ruffles his hair. Her face softens slightly. 

“May I use your phone? I left mine at home.” He lies smoothly, not really thinking she would deny him the use of the telephone, but it’s strange for teenagers to not have mobiles, and he’s used to trying to seem as normal as possible. 

“Sure, love. Need to call mum and dad?” 

“Something like that.” Sherlock’s grin fades as she lurches an old green pushbutton phone up on the counter and turns back to her computer. He pulls a wrinkled slip of paper from his pocket and dials. “Mrs Hudson? Hi. How are you? Um. this is Sherlock, the boy from the -- yes, he’s alright. Well. I was just thinking about what you had said, and, um…would that flat, perchance, still be available?” 

***

They take a black cab from the hospital to Baker Street, the kind Sherlock used to ride in with his parents when they were in London for a weekend of theater and expensive dinners. The smell of it, leather cleaner and air freshener, underlaid by the odor of spilled petrol and too many drunken uni students on a random Friday, reminds Sherlock powerfully of his parents. And Mycroft. _Sentiment, Sherlock._

John sighs deeply and lays his head against Sherlock's shoulder.

"Are you alright?" Sherlock asks, sharp and worried immediately.

"Yeah, I'm -- _really good._ " John's fingers snake between Sherlock's and squeeze. "Better than I've been, maybe in forever."

Sherlock swallows and squeezes back, the knowledge of what he's planning to do tonight lying like a stone in his stomach. He hates lying to John. Lying, in general, is something he does easily and all the time. He's been a master at deception since he was a child, but his habits of late have engendered in him a deeper understanding of how everyone lies. To themselves. To their loved ones. Incessantly. Honesty is rare and Sherlock barely spares a thought for any emotion or meaning connected to it, but _John_. John, he doesn't want to lie to. 

After. After Jim, he won't. Ever again. 

The cab pulls to an abrupt stop at the kerb of grey stone house, black scuffed door with a crooked 221 hanging from it. Next to it is a shuttered cafe with a ragged burgundy awning that reads Speedy's. It's much shabbier than the rest of the block, the rest of the neighborhood. That suits Sherlock perfectly. Imperfect. Messy. An unfamiliar sense of -- comfort, maybe -- wells up in him, looking at this unabashedly ordinary house in the middle of fashionable Marylebone. He can envision their life here. For the first time in over a year, he sees himself playing his violin again, standing in the window looking down into the street while John sways behind him with his hands on Sherlock's waist. They're _meant_ to be here. He crooks a pleased smile. 

"You two gonna get out or just sit there staring at the place?" The cabbie heaves his bulk around in the seat to glare at them. 

"Oh, sorry." Sherlock reaches into his jacket to get out a twenty, but before he can hand it over, Mrs Hudson comes rushing out the front door and raps smartly on the cabbie's window.

"I'll take care of the fare, thank you." She pulls thirty quid from an artfully embroidered little change purse and shoves it into the cabbie's hand. "Put your money away, Sherlock."

"Thank you so much." John holds his hand out to her as he emerges from the cab, slightly hunched and very pale. "I'm John."

She smiles at him in the way Sherlock imagines everyone must smile at John Watson, fond and beaming, already proud of him for whatever perfect thing he's going to do next. "Well, aren't you a handsome one? It's lovely to meet you, John. Welcome home." 

"I can't thank you enough, for what you did for Sherlock. For us." John shakes her hand firmly, covers it with his left and holds it. "This is -- unbelievably kind."

She waves him off with her other hand and shakes her head. "Nonsense. I have an empty flat, you have a lack of steady housing. Just practical. Now, let's get you upstairs out of this chill weather. You need a nice cuppa and something to eat."

Mrs Hudson pushes the door open and the smell of something carroty and savory wafts over them. 

John closes his eyes and lifts his nose. "That smells _amazing_."

She poo poos him again, "Not in the least. Just a package of cubed beef and some veggies I had to use before they went soft. Nothing special at all. But I'll get you a nice big bowl once you're settled, anyway."

A hard lump lodges in Sherlock's throat, looking round at the entry hall with its doilies and gleamingly polished, but cheap and tattered, furniture. At the neat pair of shoes lined up next to the door. At the eight hook coat rack with one lone cardigan hanging on it. She's alone. Just like them. 

They tramp up the creaking steps to the second flat, Mrs Hudson in the lead and Sherlock behind John in case he stumbles. He resists the instinct to actually put his hands on John's back and support him up the steps, but only because he knows John would hate it.

The door to the flat is already open. Mrs Hudson leads them into a cosy sitting room with a fireplace and the two enormous windows he saw from the street, through which grey autumn light is falling over the worn carpet. None of the wall colours match, every floorboard groans as they walk, and the curtains at the windows are stained with soot. It's sparse, not much furniture aside from a sofa and a desk, two worn armchairs facing each other by the fireplace. Everything is shabby. Sherlock is completely in love with it.

"Now there's a bedroom through that hall and another up the steps, but I assume you won't be needing two." She smiles at them knowingly.

"No, we won't be needing two." John turns sparkling eyes on Sherlock, all the brighter in his wan and tired looking face.

"John, I think you need to sit down." Sherlock takes him by the elbow and leads him over to the cracked leather sofa, pushes him gently into it. "Better?"

"Yes, thanks, love." John takes a deep breath in and leans his head back against the cushions. "Going upstairs is a hard business. Who would ever think?"

Mrs Hudson wrings her hands, "I still think they let people out of hospital far too quickly nowadays. You could have stood a few more days of being taken care of, I think. Well. Sherlock and I will take care you now, won't we, Sherlock?"

 _We_. They have immediately become a _we_. Not just himself and John, but now Mrs Hudson. In four days, he's gone from being a solitary street kid, to having two people who care about him, a place to live, and some kind of hope for his future. It's nothing short of miraculous. 

"Yes, we will, Mrs Hudson." Sherlock turns toward her, lips twitching, horrible at this sort of thing. "Listen. I just wanted to say..."

" _Please_ don't." Mrs Hudson holds up her hand. "It's my pleasure, truly. You boys get settled now, show yourselves round the rest of the flat, and I'll be back up with some lunch, alright?"

Sherlock sinks next to John on the sofa as Mrs Hudson pulls the door closed behind her, and smoothes his hand over his hair. "How are you feeling?"

"Tired. My stomach aches a little. I'm okay." John turns and looks at Sherlock, a flicker of heat in the backs of his eyes. "Glad to have you next to me somewhere other than in that damned hospital bed."

"Same." 

John reaches up and thumbs over Sherlock's mouth, sending tendrils of electricity shivering down his neck. "I really, _really_ hope there's a bed in that bedroom."

The grin that spreads across Sherlock's face starts way down in his stomach, dissolving momentarily the anxiety that's been weighing him down. He laughs loudly and John laughs, too, then leans forward and burrows against Sherlock's side. John's fingers play at the hem of his tee shirt, brushing more than incidentally against his bare stomach.  

"John, we'd split your stitches."

"I have staples. Can't split them." 

"Well, it's still not a good idea. You could start bleeding internally, or..."

John reaches down and palms Sherlock very deliberately through his jeans, his blue eyes roiling clouds and thunder like a summer storm. "I could just do you."

"John." Sherlock says reproachfully, fighting against every instinct in his body to push his hips up into John's hand. "No, you really shouldn't. Mrs Hudson will be back up here in five minutes, anyway. _Stop_."

John bites his lip and rubs against Sherlock in a tight circle before he relents and slides his hand back up to Sherlock's stomach. "Later, then."

"We'll see. You need rest. I'm not going to be the reason you end up back in hospital, alright?" Sherlock says softly, his lips centimeters from John's. 

John threads his fingers into Sherlock's hair, pulls him down into a fierce kiss, brimming with love and desperation and all the frightening brilliant wonderful horrible emotions that have surged through them in the past few days. Sherlock feels it, John's fevered emotion, in every quiver of his lips, in the way his tongue frets and darts along Sherlock's mouth. It reminds him of that first kiss, outside the council housing. That moment seems an eternity away. John breaks the kiss, touching the edge of Sherlock's lower lip with the tip of his tongue as he pulls back. He doesn't let go of Sherlock's hair, rocking their foreheads together with a soft moan. His voice husky and intense, "I love you _so_ fucking much, Sherlock. _So fucking much._ " 

"I know, baby, I know. I feel the same." Sherlock nuzzles his nose against John's and closes his eyes, forgetting Mrs Hudson might return at any moment, forgetting anything outside of the sound of John's breathing and the feeling of his face between Sherlock's hands. His head feels light, like when he's high. John is the drug now. He doesn't need anything else. "God, I was so. When you were laying there, I mean. Bleeding. I thought..."

He can't finish any of these ugly thoughts, can't allow himself to give voice to the despair.

John puts a soft fingertip to his lips. "I know. But I told you I wouldn't leave you. I meant it."

Sherlock smiles, takes hold of John's wrist and presses his lips to his finger, then his palm, and lays his cheek into John's hand. "So you're never going to die? That's ambitious."

"Nope. Not without you." 

Sherlock meets John's eyes, ready to share a laugh, but his laughter dies in his throat. John is looking at him intently without any trace of mirth. His eyes are fathomless wells of emotion, dark colour on his cheeks. Sherlock recalls fleetingly every romance novel he's ever read - not awful modern rubbish, but the real ones, the ones where the protagonists are torn asunder by dark tragedy, where the love between them is so deep it's destructive. The ones that end with the lovers drowning in lapping waves, dying together rather than being separated. 

" _John_." 

"I mean it. I won't leave you. Not in this life."

"John, you're..." What he wants to say is _naive, desperately and hopelessly naive._ That's not how life works. That's not how the world works. It's pain and loss and and they're teenagers, they're kids, John can't possibly know how he'll feel in ten years, in twenty. One of them could get cancer, get hit by a bus. They could just fall out of love, the way people do. He wants to say all these things, because that's the kind of person he is, thinking of every eventuality, not having faith in anything. Those indigo eyes bore into him, the black streaks like bolts of electricity, and instead of all those things, he says, "Amazing. You're amazing. I love you." 

John opens his mouth to reply, but is cut off by a "Yoo hoo, I hope you're both still decent!" as Mrs Hudson pushes the door open with her hip, bearing a tray loaded with steaming bowls and mugs. 

John nudges Sherlock with his elbow, and Sherlock understands, leaps up to relieve Mrs Hudson of the tray. 

"Oh, thank you, dear. You can set it on the desk there." She follows him across the room to the desk between the windows, which Sherlock realises is really more of a breakfast table. "Just that beef stew and tea. Finally feeling like autumn out, thought you could use some warming up."

Mrs Hudson sits down in a rolling office chair and pulls a bowl of stew to her as Sherlock hands John a bowl and sets a mug of tea down on the rickety side table for him. Sherlock sits across the table from Mrs Hudson, in a mismatched slatted wood chair with splintery arms. He lifts a spoonful of stew to his lips, chunks of carrot and potato, bits of parsnip, little whorls of grease spinning across the surface of the rich brown broth. 

The taste of it, earthy and plain, just this side of too salty, reminds him of home. He hasn't tasted anything like this since the last night he spent at his mother's table. They had beef and mashed potatoes, and Sherlock ate barely two bites. He had been high, trying to hide it. His father told him to eat or it would upset his mother, Sherlock threw a plate, and it all ended in a spectacular row. He hasn't seen them since.

He shivers through the memory, sour and suffocating, and forces himself to swallow. 

"Mrs Hudson, this is lovely. We really can't thank you enough." John is already halfway through his bowl, and is busy dumping sugar cubes in his tea.

"John, you already have. I told you, it's my pleasure." Mrs Hudson takes a sip of her tea and looks between them thoughtfully. "You know, there are a lot of people in this world who aren't very good people. In fact, I'd say most of the people I've met in my life just plain aren't very good. But they have homes and cars and jobs, because that's just how life worked out for them. And then there's good people for whom life hasn't worked out. Really good people. Who care and try and want to be kind, and things just haven't gone their way. When all they needed was a hand, someone to give them a chance to fix things for themselves. I don't find that to be particularly fair, if you want to know the truth. And I like to help people when I can. When I saw Sherlock, and how much he cared for you...I knew you had to be something special, too. So, if I can help put a few good souls back in the positive column, balance out the universe a little bit, well. All the better for me."

"How'd you know _we_ were good people?" Sherlock can't stop himself. No one ever thinks good of him anymore. No one except John. 

She smiles warmly and pats his hand. "It's in your eyes, dear. I could just tell."

Sherlock shakes his head, grateful and gobsmacked. She lets go of his hand and the three of them finish eating in companionable silence, broken only by the occasional slurping of broth or clink of a teacup into a saucer. By the time they're done, the sky has broken open and a cold drizzle is pattering against the window panes. Mrs Hudson gets up to gather the dishes, John flicks on a table lamp, casting a warm glow over a third of the sitting room. The whole scene is surreal to Sherlock. It says _home_. It sends a terrifying thrill of hope through his stomach.

"Well, I'm going to leave you boys to it. I'll be downstairs if you need anything. There's a bit of food in the kitchen, I popped down to the shop when I knew you'd be coming. Nothing fancy, but enough for breakfast tomorrow. There's a telly in the bedroom closet, but I'm afraid I don't know if it works anymore. Sheets and towels in the loo." She picks up the tray and Sherlock holds the door open for her. Just as he begins to close the door, she turns with a barely concealed smile and a twinkle in her eye, "My sitting room is right under your bedroom. Just so you know."

Sherlock blushes from the neck up, and looks down at his toes. He has the strangest urge to call her ma'am. "We understand."

She nods pertly and disappears down the steps with a smirk on her lips. 

Sherlock rounds on John, and the moment their eyes meet, they dissolve into raucous guffaws. John still looks pale and has dark circles around his eyes, but his laugh sets his face alight with that captivating golden glow. Like a sunrise sparkling across the surface of running water. Sherlock has to touch him, has to have their bodies connected at as many points as possible. It's been far too long. He sinks to the floor and folds himself between John's legs, still laughing. 

John's hands fall naturally to the top of Sherlock's head, fingers working gently through his curls. Sherlock lays his cheek alongside the inside of John's thigh and rubs a bit, feeling like a contented cat - well-fed and petted. They stay like that as their laughter fades away, wrapped together, Sherlock's long body curled into the outlines of John's much smaller one. John's fingers wander down to play with the helix of Sherlock's ear, the curls at the nape of his neck. 

"Sherlock. _Come up here._ " John's voice is rough as he tugs lightly at Sherlock's hair, and it's exquisite. The possessiveness of it making Sherlock quiver; electricity that sparkles across his scalp and down his neck. 

He shifts and slides up onto the sofa next to John. John's all over him the second they're at eye level, pulling Sherlock's face to his own, biting at his lower lip and nibbling down his jaw. Sherlock doesn't argue this time, allows John to slip his hand under the waistband of his jeans, pop the button open with his thumb. He raises his hips and wriggles until they're pushed down tight against his thighs. John's gasping against his mouth as he teases his fingers inside Sherlock's soft cotton pants and trails them over the hardness he finds there. Sherlock's breath catches in his chest, tight with affection and the ache of regret at what he has to do tonight. 

"Let me. _Please_. I want to." John breathes, his voice shaking. His face is laid open, so bare with love and pure desire.  

Sherlock's head falls back with a low moan, wanting more than anything else to have this, this closeness, forever. John's warm skin against his, John's voice husky against his throat, John's cerulean eyes searching his face. It's so simple, so beautifully uncomplicated. He wants to be able to forget about the rest of the world, all things that could go wrong, that could fracture this fragile happiness. Sherlock cups his hand around John's jaw, cataloguing the movement of his muscles as he's kissing Sherlock's collarbone. "We can't, not without --" 

John shakes his head, presses his thumb into the slit of Sherlock's cock, rubs the wetness down over the frenulum. Oh god, Sherlock can't stop him, can't make himself. He should. He should tell him no.  

"Just. Let me bring you off. _I don't care, I don't care._ " John kisses Sherlock's cheek, his ear, hot and close, breathing hard.

"We need a - _oh_ \- condom." Sherlock goes to push John's hand away, but somehow ends up just gripping his forearm, feeling his muscles tensing as he circles his thumb up and over the head, traces his foreskin softly with his index finger. Sherlock feels himself tightening already, warmth spreadly sweetly through his lower belly and back, his thighs going rigid.

"No, we don't. I want to do it like this. I want to feel your _skin_. I want _you_ in my hand, not some damned condom." Warm soft lips trail over Sherlock's Adam's apple, down to his collarbone. 

"But - it's not safe. You could -"

"Sherlock. I'm never going to be with anyone else again. _I don't care._ " John stops kissing him, pulls back and holds him resolutely in those intense eyes. 

"You don't know that. And besides -"

"Shh, just stop. I do know that. You're it. I just finished telling you."

"John."

"Indulge me, I'm injured." John cocks a devastatingly flirtatious crooked smile at Sherlock, and slides the vee of his index and middle fingers along the top of Sherlock's cock.

" _John_." Sherlock can hardly breathe, a confused ache spreading through his chest. He truly doesn't want to stop him, but he should. 

"Sherlock. You're very serious. Don't you want a hand job on our lovely new sofa? It's like a christening. Of sorts. Just not with holy water."

Sherlock can't help but laugh at that, as John giggles against his chest and slots their knees together. John takes Sherlock's laughter as permission, and drags his hand up and then down, beginning to stroke Sherlock with a gentle rhythm. 

"That's it, Sherlock. Just stop worrying. Look around. Look at us. It's going to be alright. We're together, in _our flat_ , and it's going to be alright." John strokes him harder, inches forward so they're pressed together from shoulder to hip, and buries his face in Sherlock's neck. He opens his mouth and licks, pulls skin between his teeth and sucks. " _Please let me._ I want you so bad."

"Oh _god_. John." Sherlock isn't strong enough to resist this, the momentary comfort of John leaning against him, the pleasure of his mouth and his hands on him. The small remainder of his ability to protest dissolves, and he lets his head fall back against John's arm, opens his eyes and looks down at John's fingers wrapped around him. The sight of it is so beautiful, so filthy gorgeous, his hips jump up automatically and a deep groan escapes him.

He hears John's breath hiccup. "I love you, Sherlock."

Sherlock can't answer, just turns his head and captures John's mouth, licking warm against his tongue. John's firm pulls gentle into a soft caress, matching the movements of his hand to the tender dance of their lips and tongues. Sherlock twists his hand up into John's hair, cradling the back of his head and pulling them impossibly close together. He can't ever get John close enough. He wants to take him into his body, fuse them at a molecular level, make it physically impossible for them to be apart. 

John's making beautiful noises into Sherlock's mouth, soft and needy. His cheeks are burning where they touch Sherlock's face. Sherlock slips a hand between John's legs, and _yes_ , _god,_ he's so hard and hot, straining against his jeans. He jerks and gasps when Sherlock touches him.

Sherlock's never been one to do the right thing. He deftly undoes John's jeans and shoves his hand down the front, pulls John's cock out of the top. It looks crude, and gorgeous. John's head rolls back, his face and neck flushed maroon, white blotches all over his cheeks. 

"If you let me hurt you, I'll kill you myself." Sherlock murmurs, mouthing over John's jaw.

"You won't hurt me, I promise. Oh _Christ_ , Sherlock."

They fall into a rhythm, syncing their movements, not even kissing anymore but just watching each other's faces. John grimaces and squeezes his eyes shut, bites at his lips and forgets to breathe. He's beautiful. 

"God you're beautiful like this. I didn't get to watch you, the other night. Didn't get to see you come." Sherlock whispers, insinuating his fingers into the tightness of John's jeans and stroking over his bollocks. John whimpers and whines, leaves little perfectly rectangular teeth marks in his bottom lip. 

"I'm going to. Oh, Christ, fuck." John curls forward, his breath coming in short pants. 

"Oh, fuck, baby, come on." 

It becomes frantic. John's pulling on his cock so hard it's on the knife's edge of hurting. He must realise it, passes his hand over the head of Sherlock's cock and smoothes precome over his palm and down Sherlock's length. John thickens in Sherlock's hand, and the evidence of John's pleasure sparks heat along Sherlock's nerve endings, the coiled tension in Sherlock's belly spinning wide open. His spine tightens like a bow string, bending him backward, arching into John's hand.

"Oh, Sherlock." John breathes out, sounding awestruck. He stills his hand, allows Sherlock to thrust up into the tightness of his fist as he starts to come.

He hasn't come without a condom on in so long, the first pulse of liquid heat is almost a shock. He watches himself, spilling white over John's fingers, and then looks up at John. His mouth is slack, lips crimson red and swollen with arousal, his blonde lashes tangled together as he jerks into Sherlock's hand and comes with a quiet moan, so sweet and soft that Sherlock can't resist kissing him, taking that gentleness and keeping it inside himself.

Sherlock kisses him through it, until the twitching and shivering fades into a heavy sigh and John sinks bonelessly against him. They stay that way, Sherlock watching the rain against the window as John breathes humidly against the curve of his neck and strokes Sherlock's thigh with his fingertips. Eventually John stretches, and Sherlock feels him tilting his head down.

"There's come all over the sofa." John giggles. Sherlock has never in his life heard any sound as maddeningly intoxicating as John giggling. 

"Well, yeah. Christening, remember?" 

"So now the flat is officially ours. We marked our territory." John raises his head, cheeks still holding a delicate pink blush, his eyes bright and giddy. He very deliberately holds his hand up, looks at it, sticky with Sherlock's come, and then dips his index finger into his mouth and suckles on the end of it.

"Oh my god, you are a _menace_ , John Watson." Sherlock yanks his finger out of his mouth, a streak of anger mingling with his languid bliss. "I told you we have to be careful, number one. Number two, I am seriously beginning to doubt you were a virgin two days ago."

John looks unperturbed, bats his eyelashes and kisses Sherlock's hand. "I told you. _I don't care._ You're the only person I'll ever be with. I. Don't. Care."

"Well, I do. You're infuriating." Sherlock's trying to be angry, to make John see sense. 

John just gazes at him with lust-drenched eyes, tucking himself clumsily back into his jeans, and Sherlock can't stop staring at him. It must actually possible to love someone too much, because he loves John so much he knows he'll never really be able to be angry at him for more than a passing moment. He rolls his eyes in surrender and yanks his jeans back up.

John grins and leans back into the sofa. "Too late now. I already had it in my mouth. No more condoms. Don't need em."

"John. You're so..."

"In love with you? Happy? Perfect? Yes. I am. Also a bit sticky...Fancy a shower?" John pushes up off the couch, grunting a little as he straightens up, and grabs Sherlock's hand. "Let's find the loo. We never did even look at the rest of the flat."

Sherlock sighs resignedly and follows.

***

The rest of the flat is as shabby and perfect as the sitting room. The kitchen is tiled in some bizarre green pattern that makes it feel incongruously tropical, as though there's moss or algae all over the walls. The loo is a bit mouldy, the kind of bathroom that is perpetually wet. The tub is tiny, the shower stall smaller. They strip off their clothes and John pulls Sherlock into the hot shower, kissing him deeply and leaving marks all over his neck. They soap each other up, running slippery hands all over each other's chests and legs. John pushes Sherlock up against the shower wall and gives him a darkly promising look, but when he tries to sink down on his knees, Sherlock drags him up and hisses _You are going to hurt yourself._ John just chuckles and kisses him lingeringly, muttering _Spoilsport_. The water runs cold before John even has a chance to wash his hair, and they stumble out, pushing each other, shivering and laughing.

They explore the bedroom last, their bedroom. It's got striped wallpaper that reminds Sherlock of cricket uniforms. The bed is lumpy and creaks horribly, but it smells fresh and clean, and Mrs Hudson's already made it up, covered it with what looks like a homesewn bedspread embroidered with honey bees. 

"Sherlock, do you get the feeling we're playing house?" John smiles, but his eyes look sad. He stares at the bed, makes no move to get in it. 

"A rare moment of doubt, Mr Optimist?" Sherlock's on his knees, digging the telly out of the closet. He hasn't ever been the biggest fan of television, but John's going to be housebound for at least a few more days, until his staples come out.

"No. Not doubt. Just. How do we _do_ this? Be grown ups? I don't know how." 

Sherlock sits back on his heels and looks up at John. "I don't think anyone does, John. Even grown ups. Most of the adults I know are either utter shits or just...I don't know. Lost. But all I know is five days ago I was broke and shooting heroin into my arm everyday and...well. You know what else. And now here we are. And _you_ gave us this. This has been all you. So. You know how to do something right. Something I certainly haven't sorted out yet."

John sits on the edge of the bed with his hands pressed together between his knees. He's wearing just his pants and some old tee shirt he found in the dresser, which is about five sizes too big for him. His blonde hair sticking up spiky, his eyes sleepy. He looks like a primary schooler. 

"You know how fucking impressed I am by you, right?" John squints at Sherlock, watching him as he hoists the telly on top of the dresser and looks for an outlet. 

"What?" 

"By what you went through last night, with barely a word of complaint. By the fact that after a year on heroin, you just...gave it up. In a few days. Do you have any idea how _impressive_ that is? How few people could do that? It's bloody inhuman, Sherlock." John's voice gets progressively louder, as if by shouting he can make Sherlock believe him. 

John's eyes bore into his back as he shuffles the dresser forward to see if there's an outlet behind it. He's waiting for an answer.

"Please don't be impressed with me, John. I've done very little that's impressive in my life."

"Bullshit." John says firmly, but with kindness. "I think you're amazing. I've never met anyone like you. I think you're going to fascinate me every single day until we're old men."

Sherlock can't answer that. It's too sentimental. It's too hopeful. His chest is bursting under the weight of all John's expectations, all of John's faith in him. He doesn't deserve any of it.

He plugs in the telly and flips it on. It's static for a moment, and then goes black. 

"Well, that's that, I guess." Sherlock flips around for a moment, seeing if any stations work, and then turns it off. "No telly. Sorry."

"That's okay. I'm tired. It's been a long day." John tugs on Sherlock's hand, "Come to bed with me."

Sherlock allows himself to be pulled down next to John, their thighs together. The bedspread is soft, fragrant, the aroma of lavender rising around him as the mattress depresses.

John's arm slides around his hips, his head on Sherlock's shoulder. The rain slips silently down the window. It's too perfect. 

"Hey. You okay?" John murmurs, his mouth hot against Sherlock's bicep. 

"I'm okay. You?"

"It's overwhelming, I know. Feels like it could all slip away so easily." John rubs his nose back and forth against Sherlock's shoulder, traces his fingers over the rise of Sherlock's hipbone. John's touch is already so familiar, so natural. He couldn't bear to ever live without it again.

Sherlock shuts his eyes against the truth of John's words, against the pain of knowing he's going to be walking away from this in a few hours. To try and preserve it, to make sure they're safe. To make sure _John's_ safe.  

"Come here and lay with me." John gets up, and Sherlock does the same. He turns back the bedding and slips under. "We've never slept in a real bed together, like where we have sides to pick from. Can I have the right?"

"Yeah." Sherlock slips in beside John, surrounded by the scent of lavender, and the heat of John's body. 

John covers them both with the sheets and the bedspread, curls to Sherlock's side with his head on his chest. "This is nice."

It's not nice. It's not nice at all. It's desperately beautiful. It _hurts_. It's everything that he's talked himself out of wanting, never thinking he would even live to see twenty, that he'd OD all alone some miserable night on a cold tile floor and that would be it. Nice is everything it isn't. It's heartbreaking, and magical, and precious, and Sherlock could stay like this forever. If he hadn't made choices that needed to be atoned for. If Jim didn't exist.

"Yes. It's lovely." Sherlock swallows down all those words, his throat sore, and wraps his arms around John's shoulders. "You okay like this? Doesn't hurt your incision?

John shakes his head against Sherlock's chest and inhales deeply. "Sherlock?"

"Yeah, baby?" Sherlock nuzzles into the top of John's head, smelling his clean hair, and all he can think about is how he'll have to extricate himself from all this later. He wants to memorise the smell of John's hair. Make a separate place in his mind for each one of John's smells.

"Tell me about Molly."

Sherlock's mouth drops open for just a second. "That was not at all what I was expecting you to say."

"It's okay if you really don't want to."

"No. No, it's alright. I want to tell you. You just - caught me off guard." If he can't be honest about tonight, at least he can be honest about something. "Molly was, um, someone I met when I first left home. She, uh, took to me, and we were both completely alone, so we stayed together. Her parents were like yours. She was really smart, wanted to be a forensic scientist. We used to talk, about science, and math. Things that made us remember - who we were. Inside. She, um, had to, you know...like I did. We watched out for each other. Most of the time. And then, one night, I was really...out of it, and I couldn't go with her, and um, she went out to try and make some money, and she just never came home."

"Sherlock, I'm so sorry, love." John's arm tightens around Sherlock's waist. "It wasn't your fault."

Sherlock's mind drifts, lost in the memories. Molly's long brown hair, tied in plaits like a little girl. Her wide smile. How she would make Sherlock drink water and eat. How good she was at stealing. He bites back a smile, remembering Molly casually stealing everything from toothpaste from Tesco's to huge books about science. One particularly clever heist at Waterstone's where she stole a backpack and then filled it with books and walked right out, grinning charmingly at everyone. They'd run through Camden laughing, until they found a bench to sit down and examine the spoils. They'd shared a cigarette and an iced latte, the only thing Molly had actually paid for, and Molly twirled Sherlock's hair around her fingers while they read. _Sherlock, look at the illustrations in this anatomy book, aren't they beautiful?_

"She was funny, and clever, and kind, and the only friend I've ever had. Before you. I looked for her. For weeks. Spent all day looking, even in skips and things, afraid to find her...that way...but just, you know, anything was better than not knowing. But. Nothing ever came of it. I don't know what happened to her."

John props himself up on one elbow and looks at Sherlock with hard eyes. "We'll find her."

Sherlock shakes his head. "Is nothing impossible to you, John Watson?"

"Nope. Nothing. We'll find her. You're clean now. You can think again. We have a home to come back to. We'll find her, and we'll bring her here, with us." John smiles reassuringly, eyes twinkling. "She can have that second bedroom we'll never use."

Sherlock doesn't believe a word of it. He knows Molly is almost certainly dead. But John's so earnest, he can't bring himself to be discouraging. "Yeah, that sounds good."

"I mean it. We will find her." John presses a hard kiss to Sherlock's mouth and smooths his fringe from his forehead. "You love her, and I love you, and so it's important to me."

"I love you, too." Sherlock pulls John's face to his, rubbing his open mouth over John's, running his hands down over the taut muscles of John's torso. Yes. Just one last time. Before everything could go horribly wrong. 

John pushes at the mattress with his feet, climbs onto Sherlock with his knees on either side of Sherlock's hips, not allowing either one of them to break what's become a wet and desperate kiss. Sherlock licks along the curl of John's tongue in his mouth and the sound John makes is like a growl as he rolls his hips, the hot length of him poking into Sherlock's belly. It registers in Sherlock's mind that he really has to stop this now, because they won't be able to stop in just a minute more.

"No. No, John, you _really_ are going to hurt yourself. We have to wait." Sherlock hates himself for saying it, for stopping them, especially now. He pushes at John's shoulders. "The doctors said _no strenuous activity,_ for at least a week. We've already violated that rule as much as I'm comfortable with."

"God, you're just going to _leave me like this?_ " John flops on his back with a huff. 

"Yes. Blue balls is better than internal bleeding, I think." Sherlock arches an eyebrow, and John glowers at him.

"I don't know about that." John grumbles, but his mouth is already cracking into that almost constant grin. "Tomorrow, dammit."

Sherlock can barely bring himself to say the word, not knowing what tomorrow will bring them. He swallows, jaw working against the waver in his voice, "Yeah. Tomorrow. Let's go to sleep, yeah?"

"Okay." John turns and snuffles against Sherlock's shoulder, hums. "You're a cocktease bastard, but I love you anyway."

"Well, you're an idiot, and I love you too." 

Sherlock lays there staring at the ceiling until John's breathing slows, until he's snoring quietly, the sound of it an ache in Sherlock's heart, diffusing through his entire body until he just hurts with the extent of his love. When he's positive John's fully asleep, he finally lets go of what's been threatening all evening. A single tear rolls hot down over his temple and into his hair. He muffles the sob rising in his throat, stuffs the heel of his hand in his mouth, and lets the tears flow, John Watson's perfect golden head rising and falling against his chest while he cries until his hair is wet, until his eyes hurt, until he's cried himself dry. 

***

11:03pm

The bedside clock blinks blue. Time to go.

John's deeply asleep, sprawled on his back, mouth hanging open. Sherlock slinks out of the bed, trying not to let it creak and groan. He pads softly into the darkened kitchen  and opens drawers until he finds a stubby pencil and half a pack of envelopes. He scrawls _I love you, please don't be worried. I'll be back by morning, I hope. Everything's going to be alright_  across the back of an envelope and leaves it on the counter, just in case John wakes up before he gets back. If he gets back. 

He double checks that he still has Lestrade's card in his pocket, the edges of it worn oily smooth by his constant rubbing of it. He checks his money, enough to buy a burner phone in an all night Sainsbury's, and flips through the steps of his plan in his mind like going through an old fashioned Roladex. So many variables he can't account for, so many ways this could go so badly. 

There's nothing for it. Jim has to be taken care of. 

He picks up his trainers from the sitting room floor and carries them, going down the steps barefoot so he won't wake either John or Mrs Hudson. Pulls them on quietly at the foot of the steps, not even turning on a light. He unlocks the door painfully slowly, turning the deadbolt lever a millimeter at a time so it doesn't make a sound. Exhaling through his mouth, he opens the door just enough to slip his thin frame through the crack.  The door of Baker Street closes with a soft click. The night is frigid and he's underdressed again. 

"Into battle." He whispers as he wraps his arms around himself and sets off, his heart thumping a staccato in his chest, the image of John's sleeping face burning in his mind's eye.


	6. Chapter 6

It's nearly two in the morning by the time Sherlock steps into the car park next to the council estate. He furrows into the shadows in a dingy corner, and turns on the cheap burner phone. The light from the white screen is startlingly bright in the dark lot. It's like a beacon. Sherlock's head automatically snaps up, observant and watchful, sure that someone sees him. He covers the screen with his hand and scans the perimeter. 

There's no one, of course. He is completely alone. 

A hard thrill tiptoes down his spine one vertabrae at a time. 

_He is completely alone._

There's a thumping ache beginning behind his right eye. _Stress reaction, Sherlock. You have to calm down._ He thinks of John's coiled fury at the pervert that first night, controlled and focused. He needs that kind of focus. He breathes in and out, trying to control his body enough to make it obey his mind.

He looks at the phone screen again, and pulls the worn business card out of his pocket. 

**Detective Sergeant Gregory Lestrade**  
 **Metropolitan Police Force, Bethnal Green Station**  
 **glestrade@metpolice.co.uk.gov**

There's a number at the bottom, an office line. With no small amount of trepidation, he dials it. His normal bravado is worn thin. He feels like exactly what he is; a skinny kid who has no fucking clue what he's doing. There's no backing out now. Jim will never leave them alone, and he'll go after John before he goes after Sherlock, because that's his way. To hit people in their most vulnerable place, to watch them squirm and cry and beg. Added to his penchant for tormenting anyone, for any reason, is their shared past. Jim would like nothing more than to destroy any chance Sherlock has at happiness with someone else. 

Jim is pure spite. Cold ruthless vengeance.

A memory flashes in Sherlock's mind of one of their last good nights together, playing video games on Jim's brand new Playstation 4, a pizza precariously balanced between them on the sunken sofa in Jim's living room. It was some fighting game that relied heavily on anticipating the opponent's next move, and they kept breaking even, their intelligence and puzzle-solving skills equally matched. They had finally turned it off at four in the morning, sore and cramped from sitting for so long. They stretched and yawned, Sherlock leaning into Jim's chest with a promising grin. Jim turned on Sherlock with eyes full of fire, knocked the pizza box to the floor and bent Sherlock backwards over the sofa, left bruises all over his neck and his hips. _You're mine, no one else's, mine_ Jim had snarled, biting at Sherlock's shoulder hard enough to break skin as he came inside him. 

Sherlock had thought he wanted to be, at the time. Jim was the only person who'd ever wanted him, and Sherlock knew now he'd mistaken that possessiveness for love. Jim had _owned_ him. John loved him. Jim had just wanted to control him, show him off, his pretty boy he had on a leash. He'd wanted to break Sherlock down, destroy what little self-confidence he possessed, and make him entirely beholden to Jim.  Jim had played the game so well, lulling Sherlock into believing no one else could ever want him the way Jim did. That he was a useless junkie and only Jim could love him. No one else.

John. John is the opposite. John makes Sherlock remember who he used to be, remember that there is good in him. John makes him feel strong and sure, makes him believe the world isn't as grim as it can sometimes seem. John believes in Sherlock, believes he's something special. Even if Sherlock can't quite believe that about himself yet. John will believe enough for the both of them, for now. 

John is everything beautiful in the world. That's just a fundamental truth. _That's why I'm here. To keep him safe._

The phone is still ringing. Finally it clicks over to voicemail: _Hello, you've reached the desk of DS Lestrade. I'm either away from my desk or on the other line. Please leave your name, number you can be reached, and crime reference number if you're calling regarding an existing case. I shall return your call during my next shift. If you need immediate attention, please call the Bethnal Green main desk, or dial 999 if this is an emergency. Thank you and have a lovely day._  

"DS Lestrade. This is Sherlock Holmes. The CRN is 1291895/10BG. I'm the boy who you talked to in St Bart's a few days ago. I'm afraid I wasn't entirely truthful with you, and now I need your help. John Watson isn't my cousin, he's my boyfriend. I'm not from the country, I'm from Hampstead. And I do know who stabbed John, well, who ordered it anyway. His name is James Moriarty, and he's a drug dealer at Ascham Homes in Waltham Forest. The regular police know all about him, and they've never done a thing. I'm at Ascham now. I'm going to go in and talk to Jim, and I'm going to just keep my phone on, so you can hear what he's really capable of. He'll come after us, Lestrade. He'll never stop. You must believe me. John and I need your help. Please."

He can't think of anything else to say, so he depresses the end button. He looks up at the grey streaked black sky, feeling disconnected from everything around him. Surreal. It's all so surreal. Things like this don't happen in real life. It's like a bad detective series from the 1990's, like his parents used to watch on rainy afternoons on the tiny telly in the kitchen. _Ah, look dear, Sherlock's home from school. How was school today, Sherlock? How about a nice hot tea and you can watch Inspector Morris with us?_ He can almost smell the cinnamony aroma of his mother's tea cake. The wet dog smell of his father's damp wool caps hung against the wall.

Sentiment won't help him now. He's got to focus. With a snap, he shuts the phone, and then quickly realises he needs to keep it open in his pocket so he doesn't have to bring it out in front of Jim. He flips it open and slides it into his left hand pocket, thumb on the send button. This may be a weakness in the plan. The phone could shut off, not call Lestrade, and he wouldn't know without fumbling in his pocket and being blatant. Well, there's nothing for it. He doesn't have a plan b. This is it.

Taking a steadying breath, Sherlock emerges from the shadows and lopes across the desolate lot, his long legs carrying him quickly to the foot of the enclosed stairwell that leads up to Jim's flat. With a few skipped steps, he's in front of the door. Through the small rectangle of reinforced glass that serves as a scrubby window, there's the blue glow of a telly. Jim hates sleeping with the telly on, needs complete silence. He's awake. 

Sherlock breathes out harder than he ever has in his life, chills racing over his skin, his whole body tingling in fearful anticipation. The night is freezing cold at this point, but he doesn't even register it. He's chilled to the bone for reasons that have nothing to do with the sudden onset of the damp London autumn.

He raises his fist to knock on the door, and it swings open before he can. 

Jim cocks a grin that's all sharp white teeth and sweeps his hand behind him. "Well, do come in, my pet. I expected you _days_ ago. What kept you so long?"

Sherlock takes just a fraction of a second to orient himself, and then arranges his face into an expression of deep apathy. "Well, you know, my boyfriend was in hospital with life threatening injuries. It does rather command one's attention."

Jim's enormous eyes somehow get even bigger. He looks like a deranged five year old. " _So_ glad Johnny Boy pulled through."

"I'm sure you are." Sherlock grinds his back teeth together, his jaw tight. Jim has always been able to engender in him a kind of raw anger that makes his skin feel like it's rubbing against sandpaper. He's already quivering, fear and anticipation mingling in his chest. There's a hollow ache in his belly, an emptiness at his side where John should be. This already feels all wrong.

Jim's hand flies to his chest and he bows forward. "I'd love to stand here in the doorway all night, but I would hate you to catch a chill, darling. You are a bit underdressed. Let's get you inside to warm up. Shall I put on the kettle?"

"You don't have a kettle." 

"Oh, quite right, quite right. You do remember the oddest little details, don't you, Sherlock?" He clicks the telly off and tosses the remote onto the sofa. It bounces off and hits the floor. He shrugs and leaves it there.

Sherlock peers around the bedroom doorway and into the loo as Jim shuts the front door with a profoundly final sounding click. Sherlock fights against the panic rising in his chest.

There are weapons all over this flat, hidden in strategic places. Guns and knives, long sawed off pipes that clang viciously against bone. The danger is palpable. Sherlock's little plan seems just that all of a sudden; little, short sighted, and fatally naive. He's alone, and no one knows where he is except DS Lestrade, who is probably sleeping soundly in his bed in his perfect tidy suburban house and won't get that message until it's too late. 

Jim casually picks up a glass of red wine from the coffee table and drapes himself across the sofa, legs spread wide. He very pointedly adjusts himself, and gives Sherlock a lascivious gaze. Sips his wine and allows a droplet to hang on the edge of his mouth before he sweeps it away with the pink point of his tongue. 

"There's no one here but us, darling." 

"Do stop calling me that." Satisfied they're alone, Sherlock perches on one end of the sofa, his hand sweatily clutching the phone in his pocket. The flat is so quiet. Frighteningly quiet. Jim is sure to hear him turn it on, hear the click of the button. "Mind if I take a piss?"

Jim nods at the loo, winks. "Go ahead, my dear."

Sherlock slips into the tiny bathroom and begins to swing the door shut.

"Leave it open." Jim's voice loses its sugary overtones, drops into icily commanding.

Fuck. If he closes the door now, Jim will be too suspicious. Maybe the distance from the sofa and the sound of water will muffle the soft click of the button. It's his only shot. 

Sherlock unzips his jeans with one hand, thumbs over the mobile in his pocket with the other. He can feel Jim's eyes on his back, even though he's partially obscured by the wall and the shower stall. He tries to relax enough to actually piss. Closes his eyes and breathes out heavily, willing his stomach muscles to loosen. It's not working. He wants to turn on the tap, listen to the sound of rushing water, but he knows that would rouse Jim's curiosity. He tries to think of rivers, streams, any kind of moving water. Finally, picturing the sparkling green water of the Thames, he's able to let it go. Hopefully the sound will obscure the sound of the button. He flicks on the mobile as quickly as he can manage without moving his hand too much.

Jesus Christ. He was so worried about the fucking button, he didn't even think about the sound of Lestrade's line ringing. The voice message, the bloody goddamned voice message. Fuck. At the first ring, loud and resounding in the compact space, he fumblingly shuts it off. If Jim hears Lestrade's voicemail message, it's all over. God, his plan is already fucked. He's an idiot. John would _never_ have been so stupid.  

He washes his shaking hands and tries to calm himself down before he has to face Jim again.

Jim is calmly sipping his wine when Sherlock reenters the sitting room. His eyes drift to Sherlock's and lock into them. "Making phone calls in the loo?"

 _Shit_.

"I, uh, accidentally hit the button. Left it open in my pocket. It's off now." His voice is shaking. He should never have come here. No one will even hear what Jim has to say, and he's fucked, he's so fucked. He can think of nothing suddenly except John standing alone in the kitchen reading his note. John forever alone, because Sherlock is so monumentally stupid that he believed for a moment that he could outwit Jim Moriarty, and now he's trapped. Jim is more than capable of killing him right here and now. 

"Sherlock, must we?"

"Must we what?"

"Play games."

"You love to play games. That's your bread and butter, isn't it? Toying with people?"

"Well, yes, rather. _Ordinary_ people. I'd thought you and I were beyond that."

"Oh, did you? Sorry to disappoint."

"Well, you always did disappoint me, if you want to know the truth. Never living up to the potential of that massive brain of yours. Content to be my little fucktoy and stick mummy's money right into your arm. A waste, really."

"Fuck you."

"Is that the best you can come up with? My. Well, let's cut right to it, shall we, dear? Did you come here to what? Revenge your golden haired little puppy?  So obvious, Sherlock. Tut tut."          

"John's perfectly capable of revenging himself."

"Then what on earth are you doing here?"

"Just leave us alone, alright? We've nothing to do with you. I don't need your fucking drugs anymore, and I don't care about revenge. You don't need us, you...Just leave us be and we'll never bother you. I promise." Sherlock's aware that he's pleading. That this isn't at all what he came here for, and that he's utterly failed. He doesn't care right now, about being clever, or winning. He just wants peace, with John. He wants to go home to him, and crawl into bed, into the radiating warmth of John's muscular beautiful body. He wants John surrounding him, wants John's stale morning breath and sleep crusted eyes staring at him. He wants them to share a cigarette and a latte at that coffee shop under the flat, the sunrise just barely visible behind the roofs. He wants out of here, out of this ridiculous situation he's put himself in, and Jim does so love it when people beg.

Jim goes deadly still. He doesn't blink. Those flat brown-black eyes stare unwaveringly into Sherlock's verdigris ones. _Do not look away. It's a sign of weakness._

"Oh, Sherlock." Jim sighs resignedly, as if Sherlock is the absolutely thickest clod on the planet.

Then, with a flurry of movement so quick that Sherlock's eyes can't find something to focus on, Jim's leaping off the sofa, clearing the coffee table and pinning Sherlock against the wall by his throat. _I can't breathe._ Sherlock claws at Jim's hands, smaller than his, and should be weaker, but he can't get a handle on them. He's panicking, the blood in his veins turning thick and frigid. Jim's face is so close it's blurred, his hot breath moist over Sherlock's mouth.  

"How can you misunderstand so deeply, Sherlock? You. Are. _Mine_. You belong to me. You can stick your dick in every shining little choirboy that comes along, but you will _never_ be free of me." Jim pulls back a little, tilts his head to the side and smiles slow and predatory. He tips forward and licks at Sherlock's open mouth, the feeling of his wet tongue wormlike and nauseating.

"I'm not yours. Not anymore." Sherlock gasps, and kicks out desperately, making contact with bone. Shin, maybe. Knee.

Jim curses but doesn't loosen his grip at all. Instead, his fingers tighten, digging into Sherlock's windpipe. "You always were, and you always will be. You need me. How long have you been clean? A day? Johnny boy's never gonna stay with you, pet. He's going to go find some pretty girl and have babies and you'll be a funny story he tells to his pub mates on the weekends. And you. You'll be crawling back here to me, _begging_ for a fix and fuck."

"John would never. Never." His voice shakes, the fear that been lurking in the back of his mind for days spilling foul from Jim's poisonous lips. 

Jim's mouth curls into a cruel smirk, and he shoves Sherlock hard against the wall before releasing his throat and stepping back. Sherlock rubs at his neck, gasping, the tears in his eyes from Jim's words or Jim's hand, he's not sure. Both. He can't stop shaking. He wipes at his mouth with the back of his hand, trying to erase the taste of Jim's tongue.

"What on earth did you think you were doing, coming here? Were you going to catch me out? Turn me into the police? You know they don't give a single fuck, Sherlock." Jim sighs exasperatedly and flops back on the sofa. "I'm just not in the mood for this tonight."

"What?" His stomach cramps as assuredly as if Jim had landed a hard punch in it. This isn't right. This is far too forgiving. Jim would never give up the opportunity to punish him, to mock him. 

"Sherlock, you're _boring_ me, sweetheart." Jim smoothly picks the remote back up and the telly comes to life, music blaring into the silent room. "I'm not interested in your ill conceived plotting and your lovelorn begging. I'll be watching. You can be certain of that. When you're ready to play with Daddy, I'll know."

He's being dismissed. As much as he wanted to leave thirty seconds ago, this is humiliating. Humiliating and frightening. If Jim's letting him leave this easily now, he'll be creeping in the windows at Baker Street while they sleep. 

He can't formulate a response.

"Sherlock. Get out." Jim lifts the remote and lazily changes the channel, not even bothering to glance in Sherlock's direction.   

"No." His words are failing him, but he can't leave with nothing. He can't leave and go back to John and look at that scar on his stomach and know that at any moment Jim could come and take him away. 

Jim huffs a laugh, lays down and stretches out the length of the couch, folds one arm behind his head. "Johnny Boy's the muscle in your little twosome, Sherlock. Don't try. You're not intimidating me." His hand crawls down his stomach until he reaches his groin. He curls a hand around himself and looks up at Sherlock. "If you want to make yourself useful..."

"Fuck you," Sherlock spits out, bile in his throat. 

"That was _rather_ the idea." Jim grins crookedly and strokes himself through his loose tracksuit bottoms.

"You're vile."

"Well, alright. If you want to be boring about it. Us being enemies doesn't mean we can't have a little fun now and then..." Jim's eyebrow cocks up, in that expression of bored amusement that used to make Sherlock's stomach flip over. 

Now it makes him sick.

"Leave us alone, Jim. I mean it." He works hard to keep his voice steady. He inches toward the door, both desperate to escape and determined to stand his ground.

Jim's eyes narrow, still languidly rubbing a palm over himself. "I already told you that's not an option, Sherlock. Are you fucking retarded? Now either get over here and put that lovely mouth to work or get the fuck out of my flat. You've got ten seconds."

Sherlock's stomach lurches, and he backs up so fast he trips over his own feet, crashing against the door. The knob hits him in the lower back hard enough there will be a bruise later, and he fumbles at it with his left hand.

Jim laughs and turns on his side, eyes sliding away from Sherlock and back to the television. "Tell John I said hello."

Sherlock wrenches the door open and clumsily backs out of the flat, slamming it behind him. The sun is coming up, the sky crimson and violet, striated with long silvery clouds. John will be getting up soon. 

He hits the steps at a run, careening down them like he's being chased. Which, he supposes, he is. He runs until he's gasping for breath, until his lungs hurt, until sweat is trickling down his neck and into his eyes. He runs until he physically can't anymore. He doesn't even know where he is.

He leans against a brick wall, one hand braced against his heaving stomach, and looks around. Jesus. He's leaning against the public shower building at Hackney Downs. Where John saved him from the pedo that first day. His eyes well up, and he pulls the phone out of his pocket, wanting to hear John's voice. They don't have a phone in the flat. John doesn't have a phone. He stares at the screen blankly for a long moment and then slowly closes it.

He's got to get home to John, as quickly as possible. It's a panicked desperation rising in his chest, the need to see John, to touch him. To make this whole nightmarish episode with Jim fade away.

He walks away from the edge of the park, breathing hard, and shakes a cigarette out of the crushed pack. It's broken near the filter. He squeezes it together between his thumb and index finger, lights it and takes a long drag. Not as strong as it would be without the break, but good enough.

By the time he gets to Hackney Central station, his heart has stopped hammering in his chest. The number 30 bus is there, filled with the first commuters of the day. He fumbles an old Oyster card out of his wallet and prays there's enough left on it for the fare. The driver watches him with suspicious eyes as Sherlock presses the card against the reader and waits for the beep. The light goes green and Sherlock sighs in relief, flops down at the back of the bus next to a woman in a leather jacket and a teal green mohawk. 

"Morning." She smiles at him, warm and bright. "Late night?"

"Something like that." His voice comes out thick and rough. He turns away from her and stares out the window as the bus pulls away from the curb. 

She takes the hint and doesn't try for more conversation. Sherlock lets his eyes close, the rumble of the engine vibrating through his skull. 

***

The flat is quiet when Sherlock creeps up the steps. He has a momentary wave of relief, thinking John must still be asleep. The flat door is unlocked. He swings it open gently, and is just pressing it closed when John appears in the kitchen doorway. He's still in the oversized tee shirt from the night before, his small bare feet and tiny statute incongruous with the fury radiating off of him. He looks ten feet tall. He fills the sitting room. 

"Morning." His voice is hard, vibrating with barely concealed anger. Those beautiful blue eyes are storm swept grey, seething and dark.

"Morning." Sherlock whispers, ashamed. Ashamed that he's made John angry and upset, ashamed of his own colossal stupidity. 

"Still alive then?" John crosses his arms over his chest, Sherlock's note crumpled in his left hand. 

"Yes. Listen, John, I'm so - " 

Sherlock's apology is cut short by John's striding across the space between them, throwing the note on the floor. He grabs Sherlock in a fierce embrace, his face buried in Sherlock's neck. Sherlock's so stunned, he doesn't even hug John back. He just stands there, blinking, staring at the fireplace. 

"You fucking _idiot_ ," He bites out, pushing Sherlock away from him to search his face with red rimmed eyes. 

"You've been crying." 

"Of _course_ I've been crying, you complete fuckwit," John says, yanking him back down to hold him again, his fingers slipping up into Sherlock's hair and pulling. "I woke up, and you were gone, and you leave me this fucking cryptic note, and I have no way to call you or find you. I've been going absolutely spare for the last three hours. What the fuck were you thinking?"

"I just. I wanted to make sure he wouldn't - "

"I knew it. You went to see Jim. You idiot. I can't believe you did that," John's voice is gritty with not enough sleep, raw and broken. He yanks on Sherlock's hair hard enough that his eyes water. "Actually, I _can_ believe you did that, which is even worse."

"John," Sherlock croaks out, his voice strained as John pulls his head back and bites at his throat. 

"I fucking - love you - so fucking much - " John's teeth scrape down over Sherlock's jaw, against his Adam's apple, as he turns them around and walks Sherlock up against the door. "You goddamned bloody arsehole - how could you put yourself in danger like that? Without me? How could you _do_ that?"

"I'm sorry, John, I just - " Sherlock sucks in a breath as his knees go weak, his head spinning. John sucks bruisingly at his collarbone, and it hurts, hurts so badly that he moans and pulls at John's shirt, "That hurts. John, that hurts!"

John pulls off, looks up at him with fire in his eyes. "You don't _do_ that. You don't go off and put yourself in fucking mortal danger without me, you hear me?"

"Yeah, yes, I hear you." Sherlock can't wrap his mind around this John. He expected John to be upset, sad, a bit angry. But John is looming, dominating, unarguably in charge. 

"You're my whole life, you fucker. _My whole life_. You." John yanks on his hair again, presses his hips against Sherlock's thigh. He jerks and shudders, rocks against him again, says in a voice low and rough, "I want to fuck you." 

It's not a question.

Sherlock tries to breathe, overwhelmed with desire. This black eyed, lip curling John, with his fingers tangled in Sherlock's hair and his cock pushing insistently at Sherlock's thigh, is a revelation. 

"John. I've never seen you like this." He can feel his cheeks burning, arousal flushing his neck and chest. 

"I'm _so_ fucking angry at you." John drags Sherlock's face down to his, licks aggressively into his mouth, tongue swiping at his teeth and palate. His teeth clamp down on Sherlock's bottom lip, hard. "So fucking angry."

"I know, I'm sorry. I thought I could trap Jim into  - " John bites into his lip again, eliciting a raw mewl of pain and want from Sherlock. A pleased little shiver crawls down his scalp and over his shoulders as John's mouth moves down over his jaw. He bites him there too, hot and hungry. 

"Tell me about your shit plan later." John says, his teeth nicking against Sherlock's throat. "Right now I want you just to bloody well do what I tell you. Shut up and get on the bed." 

It doesn’t occur to Sherlock to protest. John releases him and steps back, hurt and anger roiling in the depths of those wide bewitching eyes. Sherlock reaches out, desperate to make this right, and runs his thumb over John’s mouth. He half expects John to flinch or turn away. Instead, he catches Sherlock’s wrist with his left hand, and presses a hard kiss against his palm.

“John, I - “

“I thought I was going to lose you, goddammit. You’re the best thing I’ve ever had, Sherlock. I can’t - you can’t do that to me.” John’s voice cracks, his eyes shining with tears, even though his jaw is still set and his brow furrowed.

The only relationship Sherlock’s ever had is with Jim. That was all sex and submission, mind games and trying to one up each other. Barely a week in with John and he’s completely cocked it up. He has no idea how to _do_ this. How to trust someone with his whole heart, to lay himself open and allow John to see how weak and stupid and useless he can be. He _wants_ to, god how he wants to. 

“I won’t again. I promise.”

John’s face softens, just for a moment. He opens his mouth and shuts it again. His fingers tighten around Sherlock’s wrist, hard enough he can feel the bones moving. It makes him bend over, as his arm automatically retracts, trying to pull away from the pain. John releases him abruptly.“I don’t believe you. I don’t think you can help it.”

John pushes at him, then peels his own shirt off and drops it on the floor. Without another word, he walks past Sherlock into the bedroom, clearly expecting Sherlock to follow behind him. 

Sherlock swallows, feeling sick at himself. He looks at the crumpled note on the floor, John’s balled up shirt, and thinks of the day they met, which seems years ago. John, golden and shining, huge blue eyes and an even bigger smile, bringing Sherlock sobriety and love and hope. Now he’s furious and disappointed and in danger, and it’s all Sherlock’s fault. _You are a complete piece of shit. You knew you’d ruin him, break him, and it only took you eight days. Well done, you worthless idiot._

“Be quiet.” Sherlock says aloud. 

He makes sure the door is locked, and pads through the kitchen into the bedroom. John’s sitting on the edge of the bed, head in his hands. He looks up when Sherlock walks in. Sherlock meets his eyes, aching at the expression he sees in them, and slowly unbuckles his jeans. He pushes them down, kicks them away, and pulls his shirt over his head. He starts toward the bed.

“Pants, too.” John says roughly, and stands up, taking his own off. He’s half hard, cock standing out straight from his body. He looks at Sherlock steadily, almost challengingly. “Lay down.”    

Sherlock pulls his pants off and straightens up. He’s still soft. John notices, looks down at his cock and then up to his face. There’s nothing forgiving in those stormy eyes. 

“Lay down.” He repeats.

Sherlock slinks past him and lowers himself to the bed on his back. John turns, puts a knee into the mattress, and climbs over Sherlock, straddling his hips. He looks angry and desperate, his hands are trembling as he runs them all over Sherlock’s chest and stomach. The sight of him is enough to make Sherlock’s throat hurt.

John leans over and kisses him more gently than he was expecting, all soft pliant lips and humid breath exhaled into his mouth. John’s hands skim lightly over the planes of his chest, run up over his shoulders. He sucks on the tip of Sherlock’s tongue, nips at his lips and his chin. There’s something terribly sad about every kiss, every breath. Sherlock fights back tears, his chest full and far too tight. When his lungs expand, it feels like his ribs are digging in, sharp and wrong.

“You’re a prick.” John murmurs against Sherlock’s chest, and his voice shakes.

“I know that.” Sherlock’s hand falls into John’s hair as he shimmies down between his legs and noses at the crease of his thigh. 

John laughs a little, and darts his tongue out to skate along Sherlock’s skin. He licks a wet trail through coarse black curls, tongue meandering and reverent, pressing hard into soft skin as he mouths kisses down, down, until he's rubbing his hot mouth against Sherlock's bollocks and pushing his legs apart. Sherlock tightens his fingers in John’s hair, the ache in his chest spreading, warring with the heat flooding his belly as John licks at him.

“John, condom.” 

“Shut the fuck up,” John says without anger, looking up at Sherlock through long honey coloured lashes. “I told you yesterday. I will never love anyone else, I will never do this with anyone else. I don’t care. And your judgment is shit, obviously, so shut up.” 

“You could get sick - you could - “

“Then I’ll get sick with you, and we’ll take care of each other.” John’s eyes flash, and he pushes up on his hands and knees, cocks his head to the side and glares at Sherlock. “You really don’t get it, do you? That’s what people do, Sherlock. They _love_ each other, and they _take care_ of each other, and that’s what makes life fucking _bearable_. They keep each other safe. From all that _shit_ out there.”John gestures angrily at the door. 

Sherlock shrinks against the headboard, feeling vulnerable and exposed. John just stares at him, unwavering. He’s waiting for Sherlock to say something. 

“I’ve never. Never had anyone want to - “ He closes his eyes, ashamed at how tremulous his voice is, unable to meet John’s piercing stare anymore. “Take care of me.”

“Well, I do. I’m not _going_ anywhere, Sherlock. You have to stop waiting for this to end.” John lowers his face to Sherlock’s stomach, his cheek laying in the hollow of his hipbone. “Stop treating me like we don’t belong to each other.”

“I’m not.” Sherlock breathes out, knowing it hasn’t been true, but hoping he can _make_ it true. 

“You are.” John rubs his face back and forth against Sherlock’s belly, the ghost of soft morning stubble scratching pleasantly. He begins to kiss down lower, runs his hands flat against the outside of Sherlock’s thighs. “You’re mine. I’m yours. Start acting like it. You’re not alone, Sherlock, goddammit.”   

John kisses the insides of his thighs, close and urgent, his nose pressed into his flesh.There’s something so tender about it, Sherlock’s eyes burn. He strokes John’s hair,  feeling flayed open by the intensity of this, of John’s unrepentant willingness to give themselves completely to each other.

“You’re not alone.” John whispers again, and takes Sherlock’s still mostly soft cock between his lips, digs his fingers into Sherlock’s hips.

“Oh, Jesus, John,” Sherlock’s eye fly open to look down at John’s bobbing blonde head, at his own fingers twisted in John’s hair, at John’s cerulean bright eyes staring up at him as he licks gentle and slow at the tip of Sherlock’s rapidly hardening prick.

John doesn’t break eye contact. He sucks Sherlock with long languorous pulls, messy and wet and unpracticed. He licks at him with a flat tongue, licks down over his bollocks and tongues in between, rubs his cheek against him. Sherlock’s desire throbs deep and dark, low in his belly, spreading heat down the backs of his thighs. His blood feels like molasses, his muscles amorphous. He’s sliding apart, sinking into the bed, dissolving into nothingness.  

“I _love_ you,” John says, and rocks up on his knees to swallow Sherlock all the way down.

“Oh, god, god, John, I love you, too,” Sherlock manages to gasp out, arching his hips against John’s hot mouth.

John hums around him, sending sparks of electricity up Sherlock’s curving spine. He press the tip of his tongue against Sherlock’s frenulum, traces his foreskin, sucks harder and then gentler and harder again and skates a palm up over his belly. Sherlock grabs at his hand, and John laces their fingers together and squeezes. 

“I want you to come like this, in my mouth,” John pulls off, dragging his lips across the tip in a lingering kiss, and tightens his fingers around Sherlock’s.

“ _John_.” The _we shouldn’t_ is implicit in his tone, in the way he tilts his head and pets at John’s face with his free hand.

“Don’t.” John says fiercely, breathing out hard through his nose. “Just let me have this. Let me have _you_.”

That flayed open feeling returns, the sensation that his body is too small to contain everything that’s happening inside him. His skin feels too tight. It’s not about coming, it’s not about sex, he realises. It’s about belonging to each other, like John said. It’s about allowing himself to feel terrifyingly exposed, and trusting John with that.

“Okay. Alright.” Sherlock closes his eyes and scratches at John’s scalp with his fingernails. “You have me. You _have_ me, John.”

John makes a sound that’s not unlike a sob and kisses Sherlock’s thigh before he lowers his mouth back over Sherlock’s cock. Everything tightens, his shoulder blades knitting together, pushing him up off the mattress, one leg curling up over John’s shoulder as John sucks him and runs his right hand up his thigh to cradle his bollocks. 

“Oh, God, John, fuck. Fuck, I’m - “ The rest of his sentence disappears into a shuddering groan as John’s tongue swirls around the head of his cock, pushing him right to the edge and keeping him there, shivering hotly and clutching desperately at the tops of John’s shoulders.

John hums and takes him deeper, caresses his bollocks and presses a fingertip into his perineum. Sherlock looks down into John’s wide blue eyes, watching him intently, that perfect pink mouth spread around his cock, and the wave crashes over him. His eyelids slam shut as the tension breaks and courses down his limbs, twists his spine, makes him moan and whimper and bite into his lip until he tastes copper. His hips rise up off the bed involuntarily and John chokes a little, but swallows around him and smoothes his hand across Sherlock’s stomach and down his thigh. 

John pulls off once Sherlock’s stopped bucking his hips and shaking. His stomach actually hurts from how hard he came, feels cramped and aching. He curls his knees up, legs trembling. John kisses his way up Sherlock’s chest and nudges their noses together. Sherlock turns his head, heavy and drunk with endorphins, to meet John’s mouth. He tastes like come and sweat and Sherlock, and it’s intoxicating.

They share long deep kisses, John pulling Sherlock’s lips between his own, Sherlock nibbling lazily at John’s tongue. He feels raw in all the right ways, like John has taken off a layer of him that didn’t belong and left him rubbed pink and shiny, brand new. John kisses him and kisses him, and doesn’t show any urgency at getting himself off, even though he’s hard and blood hot against Sherlock’s stomach.

Finally Sherlock pulls back with tingling lips and looks at John, sloe eyed and stubble burned, his mouth chapped and swollen from sucking Sherlock off, from kissing for twenty minutes solid. He’s absolutely gorgeous, the most beautiful thing Sherlock’s ever seen or will ever see, and he belongs to Sherlock. Sherlock belongs to him. 

“I _understand_.” Sherlock says, meaning it in every way John could possibly interpret it. He touches John’s mouth with two fingers, draws them back and forth over his bottom lip. "Are you still angry?"

John smiles slow and honey sweet, takes the tips of Sherlock's fingers into his mouth. "Yes," he says, and cants his hips gently, jerking forward with a harsh pant. "I'm still angry, but - I think you're beginning to get it. How this works. How _we_ work."

"I am. I really am.” 

“Good.” John mouths at Sherlock’s neck, drags his lips over his collarbone. “Little bruise here. I’m sorry if I hurt you.”

“It’s fine. You said you were going to fuck me," Sherlock murmurs, low against John's ear.

Sherlock feels the shudder that runs through John, their bodies barely discernable from each other, pressed together from mouths to toes. John lifts his head from where it was nestled in the curve of Sherlock’s shoulder, gives him a look of such intense tenderness that Sherlock has to shut his eyes.

“I did say that, didn’t I?” John breathes out.

“Have you before?” Sherlock opens his eyes as John shifts to the side, reaching into the bedside drawer where Sherlock had stashed his lube and condoms the day before. He runs his hand down the smooth tautness of John’s muscular back, over the curve of his arse. “God, you’re really so beautiful, John.” 

“Shut up.” John grins, eyes sparkling again, the way they always should be. He leans back, sits on his heels between Sherlock’s legs, and lets his gaze wander all over Sherlock’s body, “You’re the beautiful one. And yeah, I have. With girls.”

Sherlock spreads his knees apart, wordlessly takes the packet of lube from him, and tears it open. “Give me your hand.”

John stretches out his left hand, fingers gently curled toward his palm. His eyes never leave Sherlock’s face. Sherlock spreads the lube over three fingers, drops the packet next to him on the bed. He grips John’s wrist and lowers his hand between his thighs. John exhales heavily, strokes the crease of Sherlock’s arse with two fingers.

“Good?” John asks, gentle and quiet. 

“Yeah.” Sherlock whispers, letting go of John’s wrist and reaching out with both hands to touch John’s stomach, his chest, to rub his palms over his thighs. He can’t stop touching him. 

John shivers and leans forward, presses his fingers deeper. He gasps when the tip of his middle finger dips just inside Sherlock, but he doesn’t stop. His eyes flick down to look at his hand, and then back up to meet Sherlock’s. 

“Okay?”

“Yeah, yes, more, John,” He’s getting hard again, just thinking about John moving inside him, John claiming him like this. He’s evaporating, his skin cells floating away and getting all mixed up with John’s. He can’t think. 

John pushes his finger in up to the knuckle and moans, bends forward to kiss Sherlock’s stomach and rub his other hand up and down Sherlock’s side. “God, I love you.”

Sherlock’s beyond speaking, just drops his hand into John’s hair and kneads at his neck, pushes down onto his hand. John understands, slides his finger out, and then pushes two back in. Fire crackles up Sherlock’s nerve endings and he arcs high up off the bed, clenching around John’s fingers and whimpering desperately. He’s never let anyone see him like this, so lost in them, so delirious with love and desire. Only John can be trusted with every part of him. 

John kisses his hips, his navel, licks at the head of his cock. He strokes him slow and deliberate, strokes him until both of them are panting with want, strokes him until Sherlock has to reach down and wrap his hand around his prick while John’s licking at his bollocks. John raises his head, puts his mouth against the wet tip, and Sherlock brushes it against John’s waiting lips, smearing them shiny with precome.

“Jesus, John, get up here and fuck me already. I can’t - “ Sherlock swallows the rest of his sentence as John crawls up his body and licks into his mouth, sticky and salty and perfect. 

John’s hand snakes down between them as Sherlock lifts his legs to close around John’s hips. John pushes his hips forward, one hand round his cock, guiding him as he sinks inside Sherlock. He groans, bone deep and shaking, and Sherlock reaches up to put his fingers in John's open mouth.

John fits inside Sherlock like he was meant to be there. He sucks on Sherlock’s fingers, laving between them with his tongue, and fucks him slow, their eyes locked together. 

Sherlock was evaporating before, dissolving. Now he’s on fire, burning away from the inside out and turning to ash. He’s writhing and groaning so loudly he knows he should try to quiet down, but he can’t, not with those blue black eyes staring into his and John’s hands hungrily caressing every part of him. 

“Oh god, Sherlock, oh god,” John’s restless hands settle on his hips. He’s flushed with arousal, golden and peach, glowing. 

Sherlock wants to live inside this moment, with the morning sunlight streaming in the window behind them, twining around John’s gorgeous blushing body, and John on him, inside him, surrounding him. The second wave is cresting, though. He can't stop the surging heat between his legs, the tremulous shiver shimmering up his spine. His hand speeds up around his leaking prick, his aching belly tightening again. John twitches and cries out, his fingers digging into Sherlock’s hip.

“I can feel you. Jesus Christ, Sherlock, I can _feel_ you,” There’s sweat beading around John’s hairline, glistening across his chest as he pumps his hips relentlessly. His face is red, so red, his bottom lip bitten tight in his teeth. 

“Yes, oh god,” Sherlock curls up off the bed, his own voice tinny and far away. He squeezes his fingers tight around himself and spills down between them, this second orgasm unfurling leisurely through his joints, a delicious tingle spreading through his skin, his whole body quivering and weak. Muscles still twitching, he grabs at John’s sweat slicked waist, “Come on, baby, come inside me - “

John thrusts forward and stills, breathing raggedly through his mouth. He jerks forward once more and then there’s a rush of wet heat inside Sherlock that makes him clench his legs around John impossibly tightly. He’s filled up with John, John everywhere, in his pores and his cells and his bloodstream, and he can’t do anything but cling to him and shake as John collapses across his chest with a harsh moan. 

They lay there, entwined and sucking in air, stroking each other’s fingers and gentling, gentling, until Sherlock can breathe somewhat normally. John presses a kiss to his sternum and rolls back and to the side. The sheets are soaked, wet and disgusting, Sherlock’s chest and stomach and legs are covered in sweat and come. He should move, he should get a shower. John lays on his back beside him, looking up at the ceiling and blinking, licking his cracked kiss sore lips. 

“That was.”

“Yeah.” Sherlock brushes his knuckles over John’s cheek without looking. 

John turns and curls against Sherlock’s side, kissing at his shoulder. “I’ve never - not like that.”

“No. Not like that.”

"So much for no strenuous activity." John laughs and rubs a hand over the incision low on his stomach.

"Oh my god. Are you alright? Are you hurt? Jesus, I completely forgot, I - "

"Fuck off, I'm fine. It's fine, Sherlock. Seriously. I was just trying to be funny."

"Are you sure?"

"I'm so completely sure. Shhh."

They lie there in silence, John’s mouth resting against Sherlock’s sweaty skin, Sherlock’s arm curled against John’s face. The sun warms the bottom of the bed, where their feet are twisted together. 

“I’m going to love you forever. You know that.” John says, his voice croaky and strained. 

“I know that.” Sherlock rubs his toes against the sole of John’s foot and wills away the tears in his throat. 

“I guess we should - shower?”

“God, yes. We’re filthy.” 

They stumble into the shower together and wash quickly, efficiently, drag themselves over to the sink and brush their teeth next to each other, all elbows and hips, grinning giddily at each other in the mirror with foam all over their chins. Sherlock can’t believe that six hours before, he was standing in Jim’s flat, terrified out of his mind and wondering if he’d ever see John again. It seems unreal.

John takes ten quid downstairs to Speedy’s and brings back takeaway coffees and two egg sandwiches each. They eat them in the chairs by the fireplace, John automatically taking the hideous flowered armchair and Sherlock curling up in the sprawling leather one. There’s a peace inside him that he’s _never_ known. Not even when he was a kid, never. John smiles at him with cheese in the corner of his mouth, and Sherlock bursts out laughing and can’t stop. John starts laughing too, and saying, “What? What are we laughing about?” Which makes Sherlock laugh harder, laugh until his stomach hurts and he can’t breathe. 

Sherlock’s just stretched his legs out and laid back  to stare up at the cracked ceiling when there’s the sound of a door opening and a flurry of footsteps running up the steps. A cold dread immediately drops into Sherlock’s stomach. John comes out of the kitchen, where he’s been washing the plates, and gives Sherlock a furrowed brow, eyes questioning.

“I don’t know.” Sherlock shakes his head.

“Boys!” Mrs Hudson’s voice is nervous on the other side of the door. “Boys, I hope you’re dressed. There’s a policeman at the front door.”

John walks over and opens the door. Mrs Hudson looks worried, her brow pinched, her hands twisting together. 

“A policeman?”

“Yes. Oh, Sherlock, it’s the policeman from the hospital.”

Oh fuck. Lost in John, dizzy with love and post sex bliss, Sherlock had completely forgotten about his call to Lestrade. _Fuck_. 

“Yes, alright. Let him up.”

“She didn’t really have a choice.” Lestrade’s hard voice sounds from the hallway, and Mrs Hudson steps back to let him through the door of 221B. He looks around the flat, nods at John brusquely, and then looks unforgivingly at Sherlock.

"You have some explaining to do, son. Shall we do it here, or am I going to have to take you to the station?"

"Here, please." Sherlock looks at John, whose eyes are wide with worry. 

"Fine." Lestrade takes a seat at the rickety table between the windows, and flips open a lined notebook, pulls a pen from his jacket and clicks it. "Mrs Hudson, ma'am, you can go on downstairs. These boys are of age. They don't need a chaperone."

"If it's all the same to you, I'll stay." She says firmly, perching on the edge of the sofa. "I'm the closest these two have to a mother right now. So I'll just stay."

"Fine." Lestrade turns away from her and looks at Sherlock again. "You want to tell me what that message last night was about?"

"Jim Moriarty." Sherlock can hear the sneer in his voice, tries to scale it back.

"Yeah, got that bit." Lestrade's eyes narrow. "Now you want to give me something I can actually take to my superiors?"

Sherlock's head snaps up. He looks into Lestrade's earnest chocolate brown eyes, solid and plain like the rest of him. Lestrade looks back evenly, a kind smile on his lips. Sherlock realises they may actually have an ally here.

"You believe me?"

"I can't say I'm entirely confident in your honesty, given that the first time we met, you lied through your teeth about almost everything. But." Lestrade pauses and chews on the end of his pen. "I've found that 2:30am phone calls tend to be pretty truthful. People are too tired and hopeless to bother lying."

Sherlock looks over at John, who is standing silent and watchful by the front door. He's wearing a pair of Sherlock's trousers because his one pair were covered in blood and cut off of him at the hospital. They're cuffed three times at the bottom, and he would look like a kid wearing his big brother's clothes if his face wasn't so rigid and ferocious, his back straight, those rugby strong arms folded across his chest. As it is, he looks like a bouncer.

John's eyes shift over to Sherlock's, and he gives him a tight smile. Encouraging. 

Lestrade clears his throat when Sherlock doesn't say anything. "So. Do you have anything solid for me, or what?"

"No."

Lestrade sighs and clicks his pen shut. "I can't help you if you can't give me solid evidence, Sherlock. I need a reason to investigate this guy."

Sherlock swallows, considering. He looks at John again. John gives an almost imperceptible nod. _Trust him._ Sherlock trusts John, and John wants him to trust Lestrade. He takes a deep breath.

"I don't have solid evidence now. But I can get it."

"How?" Lestrade looks at him disbelievingly, but leans forward, interested. 

"Well, Detective Sergeant, I have a plan, but - I'll need your help."

Lestrade rubs a hand over his face. John sinks into his chair, elbows on his knees with his chin in his hands. No one says anything. Sherlock's holding his breath. 

Finally Lestrade meets his eye again. "Alright, Sherlock. I probably shouldn't be, no, I know I shouldn't be, but... I'm listening. Tell me your plan." 


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone who's stuck with this story, even though I haven't updated for eight months!! You're all lovely and fabulous and perfect, and I hope this chapter isn't a disappointment after such a long wait.

“No, Sherlock. No way. Absolutely not.” John says for probably the twentieth time, shaking his head and staring out the window down into Baker Street. His eyes are red and raw, from lack of sleep, from crying. He digs his thumbs into his tear ducts and rubs in little circles.

“John, but don’t you _see_? How it plays into what he already believes?” Sherlock can hear in his voice the wheedling tone that he loathes. Mummy always caved to it, and Mycroft used to mock him for it incessantly. He clears his throat and tries again. “John, he is convinced you’ll never stay with me, that this is just an interlude for you. If I go crawling back to him telling him that you’ve gone home to your parents, that he was right…”

“And then what? You have - “ John stops, gnawing into his lip. He throws a glance at DS Lestrade, who has averted his glance down to the phone in his lap and is mindlessly scrolling through emails, apparently allowing them to have their domestic in semi-privacy. John drops his voice low enough for only Sherlock to hear, and hisses, “You have _sex_ with him? You let him use you, mistreat you? _Why_? For what? No. No, no fucking way. There has _got_ to be another way.”

“No, I wouldn’t let him - “ Sherlock cuts himself off, mindful of his promise of the morning, not to lie to John anymore. “Well. I would if I had to, but I don’t think I’ll have to.”

John sucks in a breath and exhales through his nostrils, eyes squeezed tightly shut, his fists clenching and unclenching at his sides. He’s so possessive, so protective, it makes Sherlock ache inside. He doesn’t _deserve_ John. He’s not earned this kind of devotion. But he _will_ , given enough time. He will earn the right to John’s love, starting today, by getting this monster out of their lives for good.

“You would if you had to. Why _wouldn’t_ you have to?” John says, quiet and measured. He’s trying so hard to stay calm. Sherlock can almost _see_ his skin quivering with the effort.

“Well. He’ll - punish me a bit first. I don’t mean physically!” Sherlock nearly shouts, voice rising automatically as he watches the red blotches of fury breaking out across John’s cheeks and throat. He takes a deep breath, measuring his tone. “I just mean - he’ll not let me have what we had before. I’ll have to earn his trust again. Hopefully before he accepts me back completely, it’ll be over. And I won’t have to - do anything. You know.”

“ _Hopefully_?” John says flatly, his jaw working.

Sherlock needs John to _understand._ This is their best chance at getting rid of Jim, the only way to catch him out. “John, please. It’s a good plan. It’s solid. Jim loves to be right, he gets off on it. He’ll never even stop to _consider_ that I might be lying. He’ll be high on being right, on having me where he wants me - grovelling at his feet. And then, he’ll, he’ll talk. He’ll slip. He’ll say something incriminating, and I’ll be wired, and he’ll be caught.”

"And what happens if he finds the wire? What then?"

"He won't."

"Well, that's reassuring. I'm glad your rock solid contingency plan for him discovering what you're up to is _he won't_. Bloody brilliant."

"Please trust me. Please. I know him as well as anyone can, and I _know_ this will work."

John breathes hard through his nose, his lips a tight line. His distress is coiling down into a cold ball of steel grey fury - the kind that Sherlock saw him unleash on the paedo at the park. Undoubtedly the kind of controlled rage that kept him sane in a home with two abusive alcoholic parents. He breathes deep, soothing himself. Sherlock can actually _see_ the anger folding in on itself, clicking into place inside him and settling, becoming a permanent part of him. John’s so good, he’s so _good_. It’s loathsome for him to have to suffer any of this.

“I fucking _hate_ this, Sherlock.” His voice is low and deadly quiet.

“I know,” Sherlock mumbles, ashamed in an ambiguous sort of way, because he really _does_ think it’s a brilliant plan, and he also really _doesn’t_ want John to be upset and furious and scared.

John puts his mouth against Sherlock’s ear _hot wet i love you oh god just like that_ and Sherlock shivers.

“If he puts a hand on you, I’ll kill him.” John’s lips brush Sherlock’s earlobe as he pulls back, his eyes as rough and untamed as a summer storm.

“He’ll kill you first.” Sherlock says unapologetically, touching his fingertips to the wound on John’s belly. John has to understand.

John’s upper lip curls into a snarl and he turns on his heel, away from Sherlock, throwing himself into the sofa. A cloud of dust billows up around him and floats through a sliver of sunshine.

“This is _bullshit_.” He mutters, sullenly picking at his fingernails and uncharacteristically sounding very much like the eighteen year old he is.

“Lestrade? Thoughts?” This is pointless. John is too blinded by jealousy and alpha male protectiveness to see the beautiful simplicity of playing on Jim’s deep seated belief that Sherlock will always come back to him in the end.

Lestrade’s eyes flick up from his phone, wide and thoughtful. Worried. He squints at John and then focuses on Sherlock. “It’s risky. If he’s as unpredictable as you say he is, Sherlock...we could be putting you in an incredible amount of danger very quickly. And you won’t have much backup. I need to think about this.”

“But - “

“No, Sherlock. I need to think about this. This isn’t just you we’re putting in danger. This would be my job if we cock this up, and I’m not about to put my entire career on the line.” Lestrade stands, gathers up the small spiral notebook and pencil he’s been using to take copious notes. “You boys stay put. Stay in this flat. Don’t make yourselves targets. Do not - I repeat, _do not_ \- contact Jim Moriarty again for any reason. Not until you hear back from me.”

John nods stiffly, holds out his hand for Lestrade to shake. “Yes, sir. Thank you.”

“You don’t have to call me sir, John. Jesus. That’s my dad - _sir_. Just Greg is fine.” Lestrade laughs and shakes John’s hand. “But do listen to me, alright. If Moriarty is half as dangerous as Sherlock says he is - “

“He is.” Sherlock interrupts, quailing slightly when John arches an eyebrow at him.

“ _If_ he is,” Lestrade turns and fixes Sherlock with a hard stare, “You boys are in quite a lot of danger. I promise I won’t sit on this for long, but. If you don’t listen to me, and you go off and try to handle this on your own, I can’t be responsible for what happens. Not only that, but for some bloody reason, I really don’t _want_ anything to happen to either of you. So just please don’t bollocks this up. Understand?”

John nods again, the picture of obedience. “We won’t. I _promise_.”

“I’m not particularly worried about _you_ , John.”

“I know that.” That eyebrow ticks up again, and Sherlock’s reminded forcibly and uncomfortably of his father. “I’ll keep him in line.”

“Oh, will you?” Sherlock blurts out before he can stop himself.

John tilts his head to the side and stares at Sherlock like he can’t believe any part of him exists and is standing here talking out loud. “ _Yes._ I will.”

The look on Lestrade’s face is half consternation and half amusement as he slips out with a nod. “I’ll be in touch.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you.”

“John, really. Call me Greg.” Lestrade look up at them from halfway down the steps, his eyes framed by the spindles of the banister. “And I mean what I said about not leaving the flat. Not for any reason. Not until I’ve sorted out what we’re going to do and done a bit of my own research on Jim Moriarty.”

“We won’t.”

Greg nods again and flashes a quick grin at them before jogging the rest of the way down the stairs.

John shuts the door and locks it with a quiet click. He doesn't turn around. Sherlock’s arms instinctively close around his waist, where they belong.

“Don’t.” John says sharply, his entire body going rigid.

“John, please.” Sherlock nudges his face against the back of John’s neck, lips dragging against the short soft hairs along his hairline.

John breathes out, his hand still clenched tight around the doorknob. “For what it’s worth -” He clears his throat, sinking marginally into Sherlock’s embrace. “For what it’s worth, I know you’re probably right. About Moriarty.”

Sherlock goes completely still and waits, his arms in a loose halo around John’s slim hips.

“But the thought of that disgusting piece of shit being anywhere near you makes me want to -” John stops himself, and spins in the circle of Sherlock’s arms, reaching up into Sherlock’s hair. His eyes are robin’s egg blue, as soft as the first kiss of a spring breeze. He twists one mahogany curl around his index finger and searches Sherlock’s face. “We’ll get through it, yeah? Tell me. Tell me we will. I just want to hear it.”

Every part of John is touching every part of Sherlock, their feet overlapping on the sun warmed wood floor, John’s fingers combing gently through Sherlock’s hair, John’s hips pressed against Sherlock’s thighs, their hearts thumping in unison, right next to each other. John's eyes are so _blue._ And he’s asking _Sherlock_ for reassurance. John, who always believes it will be alright. John, who never quails, never backs away from a fight. John needs Sherlock to tell him they’ll get through this.

Sherlock’s never felt more gutted in his entire life.

“We will.” He almost believes it. He presses tiny apologies to John’s bare skin with his mouth, and John’s arms go so tight around his neck that he lifts himself up off the floor until he's on his tiptoes.

“You cannot leave me, Sherlock.” John’s voice is as sharp as broken glass.

“I won’t. I promise. I won’t.” Sherlock can’t pull his lips from the sweet hot smell of John’s skin. Somehow his hands are inside John’s tee shirt, kneading the thick muscles at the small of his back.

John sighs and presses his face impossibly tight against Sherlock’s throat.

They don’t move, leaning all their weight against the other, holding one another upright. As they’ve done since the second their eyes met in that darkened alley. _Sentiment, Sherlock_. Mycroft’s snide, presumptuous voice echoes in his mind.

_Shut up, Mycroft._

Eventually Sherlock realises John’s breathing is slowing and his arms have gone slack. He's got to be exhausted. Barely any sleep for night after night, still recuperating from his injuries, he must be worn to the bone. Sherlock turns so they can walk side by side, one arm still securely around John's waist.

“John. Come on. You need to sleep.” Sherlock gently shuffles them down the short hallway, John mumbling _No, ‘m’fine_ , the whole way, and tips him onto the bed. John curls his knees to his chest and opens his eyes.

He looks up at Sherlock blearily and tugs his hand. “Don’t you go anywhere this time.”

“I’m not.” Sherlock climbs over John and moulds up behind him, cupping John’s small body entirely within the lines and angles of his own gangly one.

John wriggles back and mumbles something incoherent, his head growing heavier against the swell of Sherlock’s bicep. Shushing him quiet, John’s hair tickling the end of his nose, Sherlock reaches down and pulls the bee quilt up over them both. He rubs a hand slow up and down John’s flank and watches the afternoon shadows dancing across the wallpaper.

He doesn’t sleep. Instead he lies there, trying to conjure up what it felt like to be the broken, desperate junkie that he was just a few days ago. It seems so distant, so foreign. Like someone else’s life entirely. But it wasn’t, not at all, and it’s not far away. It’s close, it’s _looming_ , the repercussions of that life are trailing icy cold fingers along the back of his neck, ready to strangle him at the slightest wrong move.

If he's going to shake off those spectres, and convince Jim, he's got to become that person again. Go back to that dark place, all numbed hot veins, blackouts, wet tile floors and sleeping in tube stations. Desperation. Fear.

He pulls John’s sleeping body closer against him and buries his face between his shoulder blades. John makes a gruff sleepy noise and flails one arm blindly backwards, half slapping, half caressing, Sherlock’s thigh. The thought of leaving this, of leaving John, even for the purpose of preserving this wondrous thing they’ve made together, hurts down to the marrow.

The light in the room changes, shadows creeping up over their entwined bodies as the day wears on. John sleeps hard, twitching and talking in his sleep, flipping over to burrow into Sherlock’s chest with a sigh. His hands scrabble at Sherlock’s chest until they find two fistfuls of tee shirt to hang onto, and Sherlock rubs his back until he settles. _We take care of each other, Sherlock. That’s what people do._

By the time John finally stirs, purplish evening light has infiltrated every corner of the bedroom. It’s cosy, reminding Sherlock of long autumn days spent in front of the fireplace at home. Books and Tinker Toys and his mother bringing him tiny china cups of overly sweet tea. His throat closes. _Don’t. Don’t even think about her. John is home now._

“How long have I -” John’s question is cut off by a yawn. He stretches his arms over his head and throws a leg over Sherlock’s hip. Comfortable. Familiar.

“About seven hours, I think.” Sherlock trails one fingertip over the muscular thigh pressed against him, and nuzzles against John’s sleep-sweaty temple.

“Hmmm.” John sounds content. He pulls back and smiles at Sherlock. His cheeks are very pink. “You stayed here with me. The whole time."

“I told you I would.” His voice doesn’t shake when he says it. He knows it doesn’t.

John’s eyes are still sleep-soft, half closed. He’s got one long eyelash stuck in the corner of his eye, making him blink. He touches the pad of his thumb to Sherlock’s lower lip. “Did Lestrade…?”

“No.”

“Ah.” John goes silent for a moment and then he stretches again and shifts, rubs at his eye. “So we have some time.”

“Do you want to -”

“Talk about you going back to your sleaze ex boyfriend and wearing a wire and putting yourself in absolutely the most horrible danger possible in the hopes that he might maybe say something incriminating before he figures it all out?” John huffs a laugh and rubs his thumb over Sherlock’s chin, slow. “Not really.”

“I was going to say have dinner, but.” Sherlock dips his head, kisses at the tip of John’s thumb.

“Oh.” John smiles, and this time it reaches his eyes. He inclines his forehead, rests it against Sherlock’s. “No. Not really hungry right now.”

“Me neither.”

A stillness moves through them, hands heavy on each other’s waists, their feet and ankles entangled. John’s ankle bone is digging into the soft fleshy part of Sherlock’s calf. He doesn’t ask him to move. They just breathe into each other’s spaces, listening to the creaks and groans of the house, the quiet hum of the traffic out front. It’s like being suspended in a dream.

The metallic clatter of a skip lid being thrown open in the alley shatters the silence, and John jerks as though he’s been kicked. He brushes Sherlock’s fringe back from his forehead and plants a kiss between his eyebrows.

“Well. Fancy a smoke and a cup of coffee while we wait?”

“More than anything.” Sherlock says, meaning it with every fibre of his being.

“Alright, gorgeous, you get the smokes and I’ll meet you on the fire escape.” John rolls out of the bed and scratches at his belly, yawns. “I’ll get the coffee.”

They amble into the kitchen, and it could be any normal day. They could be uni students, sharing their first flat, clubbing all night, sleeping until late afternoon, John pulling all nighters while Sherlock rubs his neck and brings him tea. If they were normal, that’s what this would be. Just two boys in love and playing house, all sex and video games and takeaway at three a.m. _If they were normal._ Sherlock retrieves his cigarettes from the sitting room, throws open the window to the fire escape and leans against the sash, turning the pack over between his fingers. John’s just putting the coffee on when there’s a knock at the flat door. They both jump. Sherlock’s stomach is immediately in knots.

“Door still locked?” John murmurs under his breath, his eyes alert and his body taut, ready to fight.

Sherlock nods, unable to find words.

John nods back. “Probably just Mrs Hudson.”

“Yes. Right.”

They stare at each other another long second, neither moving.

“Oi! John Watson, open this goddamned door, it’s your sister!”

John’s face breaks open into a wide relieved grin, and he bolts from the kitchen quick as a jackrabbit. Sherlock hovers between following John and slinking out the window, having rather forgotten all about Harry’s existence.

He doesn’t have time to decide, John and Harry entering the kitchen seconds later, John incandescent, clearly basking in Harry’s presence.

She drops a huge navy blue duffel bag on the floor with a thump. “I brought you some clothes. Didn’t have much time while mum and dad were at work, but, I managed to empty a few drawers and grab your trainers and a pair of boots.”

“You didn’t have to do that.” John murmurs, pleased and surprised, and crouches down immediately to unzip the bag. He pulls out a thick oatmeal coloured cable knit jumper and grimaces. “I hate this jumper.”

Harry fixes him with the kind of steel cold stare that only older siblings are capable of, and he drops the jumper back in the bag and grins.

“Sorry.”

“Yeah, shut it. Brat.” She smiles and punches his arm lightly, affectionately. Harry points at Sherlock and winks, shakes two long orange plaits back over her shoulders. “Hiya, Sherlock.”

“Harry.” He sounds stiff and unpleasant and he knows it. Harry’s intruding, intruding on what precious time they have before - before whatever’s coming next - and he just doesn’t want anyone here except himself and John. He doesn’t do well with sharing. _Oh, Sherlock, stop sulking. You’re nearly fifteen years old, this isn’t acceptable behaviour. Mycroft’s allowed to have interests outside of entertaining you, you realise? Don’t be so selfish._

“Going out for a smoke?” She ignores his tone and strides across the kitchen. “Come on then.”

John laughs loud and deep as he reaches up to get three coffee mugs from the cupboard. “Harry, how did you even know we were here?”

“Picked Sherlock’s pocket while you two were sleeping, wrote down the addy. I wanted to give you the chance to call me yourself, but when neither of you did…” She trails off and shrugs. “I decided I wasn’t going to wait for you to disappear again. Mrs Hudson let me in downstairs - she’s absolutely lovely by the way. I didn’t know which flat it was.”

“Mrs Hudson’s - amazing, really. I don’t know where we’d be right now without her.” John murmurs, watching the coffee dripping down into the carafe.

“With me.” Harry says with certainty, her eyes fixed on Sherlock instead of her brother. “You’d both be with me. Obviously.”

Neither of them seem able to think of a proper response to that, and Harry doesn’t seem to expect one. She brushes a hand over the tiled wall.

“This is a really nice place, though. I think you both deserve a nice place.” She smiles at Sherlock, warm and sympathetic, and it occurs to him suddenly that John’s told her all about him. That night in hospital, the two of them sharing guarded whispers that Sherlock couldn’t decipher. She knows about the drugs, the homelessness, maybe even the prostitution, though perhaps John wouldn’t have divulged that bit. No, he wouldn’t have. But she’s not stupid, she would know what street kids with addictions do to get money.

He drops his gaze, cheeks burning, suddenly unable to look at her.

John goes quiet as he pours the coffee, his face thoughtful. He hands both Sherlock and Harry a mug and sets his own on the windowsill so he can maneuver out of the window. Harry follows him, efficiently folding her slender legs and settling beside her brother on the metal grating. Harry’s eyes never leave John, but he doesn’t look at her, staring into the swirls of oil across the top of his coffee. John’s mouth twitches to the side, reticent.

“I’m glad you came.”

“Me too.” Her hand darts out to touch John’s knee. “Can’t lose you again, little brother.”

John shakes his head, too fast, and blinks. “You won’t.”

“No. I don’t think I will.” Harry tilts her head, hand still on John’s knee, and catches his eye.

John’s answering smile is sad and apologetic. He leans and kisses Harry’s cheek, hard and fast, and her face relaxes. She sets her mug on the grate with a rattle, coffee splashing out and dripping down to the concrete, and throws both arms around him.

Sherlock’s still standing awkwardly in the kitchen, cigarettes clutched in one hand, the coffee mug warm in the other. He’s not used to this, experiencing other people’s intimacy. He doesn’t know where to look. He doesn't know what to _do._

It's the hospital room all over again, Harry sharing this bond that he doesn't - _can't_ ever - have with John, and it makes him think small, nasty things. Things he would never say aloud. And he _likes_ Harry, he truly does.

It's only that some piece of John belongs to her instead of to Sherlock, and that is unbearable.

“Coming out, love?” John says easily, leaning out of Harry’s embrace, his eyes just the littlest bit red and wet.

“I can’t -” Sherlock holds his full hands up helplessly, feeling tongue-tied and out of place.

“Here.” John holds out his hand and takes Sherlock’s coffee mug so he can fold his long legs and duck under the sash.

He sits cross legged across from John and John immediately straightens his legs to put his cold bare feet in Sherlock’s lap. It’s chilly out, the sun low in a brown sky. Sherlock passes around the pack and they all fumble to light their cigarettes, the wind whipping fast through the narrow alley. Harry takes a long drag and blows the smoke out of the side of her mouth.

They sit in silence, cradling their coffees in cold stiff hands, Sherlock mindlessly rubbing the arch of John’s right foot with his thumb, Harry staring off into the distance and occasionally tapping the end of her nose with her cigarette. It’s companionable, familial. The last time Sherlock felt this peaceful was that first night with John, which feels a forever ago.

They stay there until the sky goes black, the smells of dinners cooking rising up around them, listening to the neighbours taking out their rubbish. Harry does most of the talking, about a concert she saw last week, and roommates at uni who drink all her soy milk and have loud sex on the sofa and drive her crazy, and about how she’s failing chemistry. She makes them laugh, she makes _John_ laugh, which is good and comforting, and the feeling that she’s intruding slowly disintegrates in the crisp autumn night.

John goes to refill the coffees and Harry pushes him back to sitting. “No, you sit there. You’re still recuperating.” She climbs in the flat and returns five minutes later, handing them hot coffees and the blanket from their bed. “Getting cold out here.”

At some point John moves to sit next to Sherlock instead of Harry, lays his head against Sherlock’s shoulder and grabs his hand under the blanket. Just like that first day on Tower Bridge. Sherlock squeezes his fingers and refuses to acknowledge the lump in his throat.

“Well, lovelies. This has been smashing, but I’m going to leave you to to yourselves and get my arse home to study.” Harry stands abruptly. “Expect me to unexpectedly show up on your doorstep frequently. Not that I don’t trust you, Sherlock, but I like to keep a close eye on this one.”

Sherlock smiles up at her, looking into those indigo eyes that are so much like John’s, and it dawns on him that if they never have anything else in common, they both love John ferociously. And that’s enough.

“You’re always welcome, Harry.” He finds himself only slightly surprised that he means it.

“Thanks, Sherlock.” Her voice is softer than usual as she reaches down and puts her hand on his hair, just briefly. “I’ll see you round.”

“I’ll walk you out.” John follows her in through the window, gathering up the empty coffee mugs as he goes.

Sherlock wraps his arms around his knees and cranes his neck up to look at the starless London sky. Harry and John’s murmured goodbyes float out through the open window, and then the sound of the flat door shutting soundly. John’s small frame appears backlit from the yellow light of the sitting room, the kitchen dark.

He puts both hands on either side of the doorway and tilts his head. “You coming in?”

“Yes, I guess so.”

“Greg hasn’t rung.” John says carefully as Sherlock drags the end of the blanket inside and shuts the window behind him. John is so _careful_ with him.

“No.”

“You think he will tonight?”

“I really have no idea, John.”

John looks down at the floor, looks back up at Sherlock from under his lashes. His mood has changed. Harry’s taken their ease, their calm, with her, and now the pressure’s returned. Sherlock remembers to lock the window.

“It’s just...I’m just wondering if we have _time_.” John’s voice catches meaningfully on the last word, his eyes blazing with all the worries they aren’t voicing, all the fears they refuse to give name to.

“We have time.” If he leaves tomorrow, if this is the last night he has with John for who knows how long, _they have time_.

“Good.” John says definitively, and crosses the kitchen in three steps.

They twine together without another word, John pushing Sherlock back against the counter, but gentle, quiet, not breaking the silent darkness that’s surrounding them. He can’t see John’s hands caressing his hips, mouth at his throat. John’s so _warm_ , he’s always so warm, even when they’ve been sitting in the cold for an hour and Sherlock’s chilled to the bone.

“I can’t stand the thought of you leaving. I hate it, I hate it,” John whispers, his voice trapped somewhere between anger and misery.

“I know.” Sherlock thinks of twenty other answers, all just as inadequate and useless. He shuts his eyes and lets his head fall back, bracing himself against the counter, fingers curled tight around the edge, his eyes rolling back as John sucks out a bruise under his jaw.

“I want you to - like we did the first time. But nothing between us this time.” John’s hand slides hot between them, palming Sherlock through his jeans.

Sherlock doesn’t argue. "Yeah. I want that too."

John pulls back, kissing at Sherlock’s chin, at his bottom lip, and takes both his hands from where they’ve practically melded to the counter. “Come on.”

Sherlock hasn’t slept in over twenty four hours. Overwhelmed suddenly with exhaustion and desire both, and trying desperately hard not to think of all the shit hanging over their heads, he allows John to pull him into the bedroom, tumble him down onto the bed.

John kneels at the edge, between Sherlock’s spread legs, and pulls his shirt off over his head, throws it carelessly on the floor, and bends down over Sherlock, licking his mouth open and fumbling at the hem of his tee shirt. “Want you inside me. So bad.”

“Oh, god, John.” Sherlock runs his hands over the hard musculature of John’s back, down to squeeze at his arse.

John pushes Sherlock’s shirt up roughly, still kissing him, and circles his nipples with his thumbs. He bites at Sherlock’s upper lip and grinds his pelvis down. “Come on, Sherlock. _Fuck me_.”

Before Sherlock can do anything at all in response except grab helplessly at John’s hips, John rolls off him, unceremoniously yanks both his jeans and his pants off and slithers across the bed on his stomach. He looks expectantly over his shoulder at Sherlock, his eyes huge and round and seething with emotion.

Twenty minutes ago they were laughing with Harry and smoking and drinking cold coffee out of chipped secondhand mugs.

Now they’re here, with John’s perfect lithe little body spread out beside him, and far too many unwelcome thoughts rushing confusedly through his fatigued mind, and all he can do is peel his clothes off and clumsily crawl up over John’s back, kiss at his shoulders and the nape of his neck, and breathe him in. He smells like fresh air and tobacco smoke.

“Like this?” Sherlock huffs into John’s hair, his breath hitching on a pulse of arousal as his cock drags up between John’s arse cheeks.

“Yeah. Like this.” John mumbles, pressing his face into the rumpled sheets and pushing his arse up.

Sherlock kisses down his spine, becoming utterly lost in the sensation of each one of John’s muscles vibrating and tensing under his mouth. He gets stuck halfway, licking and sucking at the perfect dip where John’s rib cage gives way to his waist, forgetting what he’s doing, until John’s writhing under him and moaning _Please, please, please_. He presses one last kiss over the uneven crimson blotch he’s left on John’s pale skin, remembering John wants him _inside_ him, and he’s getting distracted.

He fishes a packet of lube from the bedside drawer and drips half on the first two fingers of his right hand, nuzzles at the dimples of John’s back with his nose. “Up.”

John complies wordlessly, sliding his knees up and groaning shamelessly as Sherlock circles his hole with two slick fingertips. “Oh, oh _Christ_ , Sherlock, oh.”

“ _John.”_ There’s no more beautiful sound in the world than John’s name carried on his arousal roughened voice. He skates one hand up the curve of John’s back and tugs lightly at his hair, simultaneously resting his face against John’s thigh as he watches his index finger push slowly inside.

John’s entire body jerks, his shoulders tightening, and he makes a small, desperate sound and then gasps out, “More. Please. I need, I need more.”

Sherlock slowly slowly insinuates his middle finger beside the first, and spreads them, crooks them, wriggles them inside of John until the noises escaping him have grown urgent and raw, his mouth open and gasping against the sheets. Sherlock’s face is burning hot, his body shivering, as he moves up John’s back, mouthing messily at every inch of bare skin, the heat between them electrifying, John moving and rolling ceaselessly underneath him.

Sherlock pins his wrists to the bed. “This okay?”

“Yeah.” John says, on a whisper of breath, just barely audible.

“You sure?” Sherlock squeezes lightly, feeling all those delicate bones moving between his fingers.

“Yes, goddammit, it’s okay, it’s more than okay. I just _want_ it, come _on_.”

Bracing himself with one hand wrapped round both John’s small wrists, he reaches back with the other hand and grabs the opened lube, smears it over his cock and presses himself against John, just _that_ much inside. John shifts and pushes back against him, lets out a shuddering whimper, and Sherlock answers him, indecipherable and unbound, noises tearing out of his throat as he sinks down and _in._

It’s unhurried, the way they move together, the whole of Sherlock’s body covering the whole of John’s body, their knees pressed together, Sherlock with one foot tensed and pushing against the corner of the mattress, rocking them both down and forward, making the ancient bed frame creak ominously. Sherlock kisses John’s shoulder, and his neck, and the sweet tender place behind his ear. John moans and strains cursorily against Sherlock’s hands, finally stops trying to hold himself up even the least bit, letting his knees slide apart and laying flat on his stomach against the mattress while Sherlock fucks him slow.

Sherlock doesn’t speed up, not even when his body is begging for it. Steady and measured, he rolls his hips, pressed without even a hairsbreadth of space up against the swell of John’s arse, his knee tight against the outside of John’s knee. John’s trembling under him, trying to turn his head so they can kiss, and making the sweetest, softest sounds Sherlock’s ever heard in his life. He could do this for hours. He could do this _forever_ , nose buried in the humid pheromone laden juncture of John’s neck and shoulder, cock buried deep inside the warmth of John’s body, intoxicated by the way their bodies fit together as though they were made to do just this.

“Oh - oh - oh, god, I’m gonna -” John’s fingers suddenly curl at the headboard, his rough panting deepening into a low rumbling groan as his hips snap down hard.

He’s going to come all over the sheets, just rutting like an animal while Sherlock’s fucking him. The visual of that, of John’s wet flushed cock trapped between his belly and the bed, makes everything in Sherlock’s body go tight and stretched. He slams his eyes shut and forces himself not to come yet.

“ _John_ ,” Sherlock murmurs into his sweat damp hair, apparently incapable of saying anything else. He grazes his teeth along the ridge of John’s scapula, darts his tongue out to taste his salty skin.

“Oh god, oh god, oh god,” John’s voice rises, quickening, as he goes shakingly tense and clenches down hard all around Sherlock.

Sherlock allows himself to speed up, finally, freeing John’s wrists and putting his hands flat against the bed to leverage up so he can thrust hard and fast. When it breaks over him, it’s long and quivering and hot, reaching down into every nerve ending and reverberating, making him quake and moan long after the orgasm ends.

He collapses trembling, gulping air, against John’s back, and John shimmies under him, tickles at his thigh with his fingers.

“Shove off, you great lump. You weigh about a million pounds.” His voice is muffled and thick, but Sherlock can hear the smile in it.

“Do not.” Sherlock mumbles halfheartedly, kissing at John’s cheek.

“Well, maybe not a _million_. But close. Also, I’m laying in - well, I’d like to move over.”

John’s back is warm and sticky and comforting and it takes enormous willpower to make himself pull out and roll to the side. John shifts sideways, folds his arms under his head and blinks lazily at Sherlock, his neck and face still crimson, his eyes the colour of bluebells, soft and sleepy.

He bites his lip and closes his eyes. “God, I love you.”

“I love you too, John.”

“I feel like we haven’t said that in - in a long time.”

“Just since this morning,” Sherlock smiles.

“Too long.” John kisses Sherlock’s shoulder, curls closer, and pulls Sherlock against him. “He’s not going to call tonight.”

“No.” Relief floods through him as he says it, realising it’s true. He’s got a little more time, a little more of this before he reenters hell.

“Good.” John says with finality, and draws Sherlock down until his head goes against John’s chest and John’s arm goes round his back, and he feels small and tired and doesn’t want to do anything outside of lay naked in John’s arms and _breathe_ , because it’s the only place he really can.

John rubs his hand up and down Sherlock’s spine, rhythmic, and he can feel his body giving in to sleep, his eyes drifting closed again and again until he can’t drag them back open.

“Shhhhh, that’s it. Go to sleep.” John kisses his temple, over and over.

Unable to fight sleep any longer, and soothed by John’s strong arms around him, he allows himself to sink, his dreams a confused jumble of the sitting room at home and Jim’s flat and 221b, everything that’s familiar and comforting somehow ominous in his fear darkened mind - his mother offering John and Sherlock a plate of scones and jam while a thunderstorm roils and lashes against the windows - Sherlock crawling into bed with John only to have him roll over and smile at him with Jim’s sharp white teeth - Mycroft doing lines sitting cross legged on Jim’s floor.

He wakes up panting from the last one, the image of Mycroft’s cocaine dusted nose still burned in his retinas. He blinks and tries to acclimate himself, remember where he is. The sun is shining bright through the curtains, it must be at least nine in the morning.

“Morning, sleepyhead.” John shuffles in, shaved and showered and wearing a skin tight Nirvana tee shirt and a pair of jeans that actually fit him properly, and Sherlock’s mouth nearly waters at the sight of him. He’s balancing a tray with two steaming cups of coffee and a stack of toast. He sets it on the end of the bed and hands Sherlock a mug. “Before you ask, Greg still hasn’t rung.”

“I wasn’t going to ask.” Sherlock struggles upright, tucking the sheets around his still naked body, and sips his coffee.

“Yeah, right.” John grins knowingly and sets the plate of toast on Sherlock’s outstretched thighs. “Eat.”

“Yes, daddy.” Sherlock smirks, the mood between them somehow light and flirtatious, despite everything. This bedroom, this flat, there’s a magic here, made of clear morning light and the smell of fresh coffee and warm bread - it’s impossible to not feel at least a little bit safe.

“I told you the other night, do not fucking call me that, that is just...weird.” John makes a face, scrunching up his nose endearingly, and pokes at Sherlock’s thigh. “We’ve known each other for a week today, you know.”

“Is it our anniversary, then?” Sherlock says quietly, not even half joking, and rubs his thumb over the back of John’s hand.

“Mmm.” John hums in agreement, leaning forward and pressing a hard kiss to Sherlock’s mouth. “Happy anniversary.”

Sherlock wraps his free hand around the back of John’s head and holds him there, licks at the seam of his closed lips. He can feel John smiling, the little shake of his head.

“Nope. Eat your toast. Seduction won’t get you out of it.” John pulls back and stands up, walks over to the window and looks down into the alley. “I hope Greg never calls.”

“I know that.” Sherlock clears his throat, breaks off the corner of a piece of toast.

John makes a gruff sound in his throat, his shoulders tightening. “Well, I guess we just wait.”

“I’ll text him if he’s not made contact by this afternoon.”

John falls silent and Sherlock slowly eats his toast. Just as Sherlock’s setting the plate aside and moving to get out of bed, they both hear footfalls on the steps.

“That’s not Mrs Hudson.” Sherlock looks up as John turns away from the window.

“Is it Jim?”

“No. But there’s two people.”

“That’s fine, okay. I can handle it. Get dressed.” John sets his mug on the windowsill and shuts the door firmly behind him.

Sherlock throws the sheets off, and drags on yesterday’s clothes, knowing he’s sticky and foul and smells like sex and stale sweat, but he’s still cleaner than he was a week ago, so he doesn’t care.

Two male voices, John’s and...Lestrade’s. The third person isn’t talking. _What the hell is going on?_

Sherlock jerks the door open harshly as he’s still zipping his jeans, and skids into the sitting room. Lestrade and John are standing in the doorway, and behind Lestrade is -

“Molly?” Sherlock breathes, feeling like he’s been punched in the gut.

“Molly?” John echoes, looking both worried and perplexed. “ _Your_ Molly?”

Sherlock gapes, stunned, unable to answer John. His heart is thumping out his chest. Never, never did he think he would see Molly Hooper again. He assumed she was an unidentified body, a bloated corpse being buffeting by the currents at the bottom of the Thames. He can’t remember how swallowing works.

Molly smiles, bright and quick, and bites into her lip. She looks healthier and heavier than Sherlock’s ever seen her, her brown hair shiny and thick, piled in a messy bun on top of her head. She’s wearing olive green overalls and a pink cardigan, which look brand new, but her shoes are the same worn, grubby, cream coloured Converse she always wore. Somehow the sight of those shoes is almost more shocking than seeing her face.

“Hi, Sherlock,” She says almost bashfully, and gives a little wave.

“What are you - ? You’re _alive_.” There’s not enough air in the room.

“Well. Yes. And you. You look wonderful.”

“So do you.”

And suddenly Molly’s in his arms, her thin arms wrapped tight around his neck, and she’s kissing the side of his face, and tears are pricking at his eyes as he puts his nose into her hair.

“I wanted to, I wanted to tell you, to find you. But I - I just never. I’m sorry, I’m _so_ sorry, Sherlock.”

“No, it’s fine, it’s fine.” He whispers, not even knowing what he’s saying, hardly able to believe that she’s real.

Lestrade clears his throat and Molly and Sherlock break apart, Molly tucking her arm around Sherlock’s elbow and beaming up at him.

John’s watching them with a crooked grin. “I told you we’d find her, Sherlock. Or, rather, she found us.”

“I can’t. I don’t know -” Sherlock fades out, shaking his head.

“John, I’m Molly. Greg told me about you.” Molly holds out her hand and John shakes it, with that firm, sturdy way he has about everything.

“And Sherlock told me about you. He looked for you, you know. He missed you.” John’s voice is just shy of accusatory, his smile faltering a bit.

“I wish more than anything that I could have told him what happened. But I can now.” Molly squeezes Sherlock’s elbow. “I will now. I promise.”

Lestrade gestures to the sofa and then pulls out the rickety chair from the breakfast table and sits. “I know this is a lot to take in. I didn’t realise before last night that you and Molly knew one another. Molly works with us, Sherlock. She’s been our eyes and ears in certain circles for a few months now. She’s going to be a rather integral part of this plan of yours. Sit down, folks. We’ve got a lot to discuss.”

“So, we’re moving forward?” Sherlock finds his voice, hoarse and ragged, his head still spinning with the reality of Molly being here.

The three of them settle on the couch together, John on his left, Molly on his right. It’s perfect, it’s his family, the family he’s made for himself, and he chokes down an overwhelmed sob as John’s fingers tangle with his own.

“We are. Against my DI’s better judgment. I convinced him that if we take down Jim Moriarty, a whole lot of the rest of East London’s drug kingdom is going to come crumbling after him. That was a temptation he couldn’t refuse. But he doesn’t like it.” Greg pulls a sheaf of papers from his bag and sets them on the table, places a pen on top. “Before we go any further, this is the paperwork for being a consultant with Scotland Yard. This has got to be _completely_ on the up and up, understand? If we fuck it up, and do something illegal, the whole goddamned thing is pointless.”

“We understand.” John answers for them both, squeezing Sherlock’s fingers.

Sherlock looks down at him gratefully, knowing how much it’s costing John to support this, how much he’s holding in. John smiles at him reassuringly, though his eyes are melancholy.

Molly leans against Sherlock’s side and smiles and smiles, her natural ebulliency radiating out of her even more than Sherlock remembers. She envelops his hand in both of hers. “It’s the same stuff I signed, Sherlock. It’s good. They’ll protect you, watch out for you.”

“I believe you.” Sherlock says. And he does. For the first time in years, he looks around and sees the faces of people he can trust, people who love him and believe in him, and more than anything he wants to preserve this, to not let Jim poison his life anymore. He looks from John to Molly, and then to Lestrade. “Tell me what I have to do.”


End file.
